


Depravity

by mathildia



Series: Tales from Netheredge [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Blindfolds, Bondage, Brutality, Butt Plugs, Exploitation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face-Fucking, Fairies, Hand Feeding, Hurt/Comfort, Invasion, Kink Awakening, Kneeling, M/M, Manipulation, Masochism, Mind Games, Oral Sex, Reluctant Submission, Sex Magic, Sex Pollen, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Slavery, Threat of Blinding, Trade Agreements, Whump, a d/s au for a couple of chapters, burning at the stake, don't hurt him, high protocol, threat of maiming, transactional sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathildia/pseuds/mathildia
Summary: Runi Assam the young High Chancellor of Bow has great plans to transform the kingdom, using the work of the Bow’s mysterious court magician, Myr. But in order to fulfil his plans Myr asks more from him than he ever expected.“Which is why, I believe, if we were to have sexual relations, it could help my work.” Myr says this as if he asking Runi for an increased supply of metal ingots.Runi isn’t sure what to say next, but everyone else at the table seems to be expecting him to speak. So he says, “What would I be required to do?”Myr cocks his head on one side. “It will take some experimentation, but, initially, I propose, you come to my rooms, strip yourself naked while I regard you, and then bring me to climax while I charge the orb. Your mouth would probably be the best way to achieve the required effect.”To that, Runi just nods. He is rarely rendered speechless by council meetings, but this, this is really impossible to process.COMPLETE
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Tales from Netheredge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566223
Comments: 89
Kudos: 136





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can read the stories in this series in any order. They all take place in the same world, but the connections between them are minimal.
> 
> https://mathildia.tumblr.com/

When Runi Assam is six years old his school master tells his parents that his abilities in mathematics outstrip most boys twice, even three times his age. When he is nine the head teacher of the school asks his parents if they will pay to have him educated in numbers by a tutor from The Callisto Empire who had learnt at the university in Firvane. They agree. 

When Runi Assam is twelve years old a party from the royal court of Bow, come to his town and request he become the apprentice of the High Chancellor at the Palace on Bright Water. He goes.

When Runi Assam is nineteen the High Chancellor dies and he becomes the new High Chancellor of Bow. The youngest ever to hold that office. And when Runi Assam is twenty two Myr, the Magician to the Royal Family of Bow, Lord of Magic and Master of Runes propositions him during a meeting of the Great Council.

*

At that particular council meeting are the young queen, Verne, Verne’s husband, Prince Charna, Moira, the Queen’s healer, Zem of the guard, Myr and Runi himself.

Myr, attends council meetings rarely, but over the last three years, Runi feels he has got to know him somewhat. Insofar as anyone gets to know Myr.

Myr arrives late, sliding into his chair, slight and silver, with his pale skin and hair and eyes that were almost colourless. Runi notices, as he sometimes does, the way Myr’s skin seems to glisten, blue and green, in some lights, like the sunlight here in the council chamber, but whenever he notices it he thinks he’s probably imagining it. 

Runi chairs the meetings as he always does. Reporting on his grand project, the export of magical orbs containing limited transference spells; a technology developed by Myr’s father Goren. Over the years The Calisto Empire has become more and more interested in buying magic, although publicly they condemn magic as immoral and against the will of Xe.

This does not matter to Runi. Calisto can be as hypocritical as they like while they paid well for what Bow can export, and moreover if Calisto is buying magic, Caen will buy magic. The magic Bow can sell is too small to be weaponised. But Caen gets nervous when Calisto, the huge empire they share an uneasy border with, does anything.

“And I project,” says Runi, finishing his explanation with a flourish, “with Calisto and Caen buying from us, trade in the orbs could increase ten fold over the next couple of years.”

Charna leans forward. “I could go on another state visit to Caen, if you think that would help?”

Next to Charna, Verne visibly twitches. Runi knows why. According to palace gossip, the last time Charna visited Caen, he spent all his time in The Harem, where not a single whore would take his coin, and, instead, they fought to be the one to service him.

There was a lot of palace gossip about Charna. And Runi knows most of it is true.

Verne doesn’t look at her wayward husband as she says, “Perhaps we could move on to other business. Zem, you had news from Galash.”

Zem clears his throat. The Captain of the Guard is an appropriately large and muscular man, sometimes looking at him makes Runi feel a little light headed. He tries not to focus on that. He is always, whilst in meetings, appropriately professional. “The uprising in Galash seems to have resolved,” says Zem, in a soft deep voice, “Zagor, the leader of the rebel faction has installed himself as city warden. He has written asking us to acknowledge his legitimacy. As far as I know he has made the same request of all the provinces of the Northern Lands.”

“I see,” says Verne, a thin line forming on her pale brow. “And do you think we should?”

“Perhaps,” says Zem, “perhaps not. No harm in it, generally, with Galash being so far away and so small. But Melkhor have already denounced him.”

“They would,” says Runi. “Galash have a strong claim to most of Melkhor’s land.”

“Melkhor is closer to us than Galash. Perhaps we should hold for now,” says Verne. “No need to rush to making and allegiance one way or another.”

“Unless he invades Melkhor,” says Runi. 

“If I may say something,” says Myr from the end of the table, his voice, though light, seems to cut through the rest of the conversation. The entire council turn to look at him. Myr rarely speaks at council meetings and, if he does, it is only when the discussion is about magic. 

“You want to say something about the situation in Galash?” says Runi, surprised.

“Oh, no, is that what you were talking about? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about something else. The trade in magical orbs and meeting the demand from Caen and Calisto. You said, a tenfold increase?”

“We’ve moved on from that,” says Runi, irritated. If anyone else at the table, even the Queen, had tried to change the discussion like this, Runi probably would have prevented it, but Myr is different. Myr holds a kind of power that no one else at the table holds. Myr is the only person on the council who is irreplaceable. Myr is the only person who can do what he does. The only person who can help Runi fulfil his plans, so Runi says no more and looks at Myr, expectantly.

“If we could, touch on it again, the problem here is that the orbs my father developed during his visits to Perpetua are made of silver, very expensive and time consuming to produce. We are at capacity for such things. I fear we will never meet your trade targets unless a more efficient orb is produced.”

“Yes,” says Runi. “I took account of that, but I understood you were developing one. Is there news on that?”

“I think I may have had some luck recently with a simpler design and a brass alloy of Copper and Zinc. They do not have quite the same qualities as the silver orbs, brass is not a naturally magical material, but, I think if I can gain some additional power myself I could charge them quite adequately.”

“That’s marvellous news,” says Runi. “I am sure we supply whatever power you need.”

“I’m glad you think so Lord Chancellor. As, I would like to propose that, to gain that power, you have sexual congress with me.”

Runi’s mouth drops open. “What?”

Across the table he sees Charna smirks. 

Verne looks shocked. “Lord of Magic,” she says, “explain yourself.”

Myr only looks at Runi, his pale eyes glittering. “I am perhaps, not being clear. When you came to my rooms yesterday, I became aware of something. Do you remember you had been caught in the rain crossing the square and your clothes were wet.”

“Yes,” says Runi. “I apologised for my state of dress.”

“And, as I said to you then, an apology was not necessary. As I recall, your shirt in particular, was very wet, stuck to your body and quite transparent. I found the sight of your body extremely arousing.” 

“Oh,” says Runi. He had not been aware at the time that Myr was looking at him quite that way. He remembers being uncomfortable in his wet clothes. Had his shirt been transparent? He hadn’t noticed.

“Yes,” Myr continues lightly. “And when I felt sexual arousal, looking upon you, the brass orb I was holding, began to spin in my hand. Do you remember?”

Runi does remember that. Myr was holding a glittering metal orb in his hands. It had spun and he had made an excited mark on the paper. “Yes. I think so.” But Runi hadn’t thought for a moment that had anything to do with him.

“Which is why, I believe, if we were to have sexual relations, it could help my work.” Myr says this as if he asking Runi for an increased supply of metal ingots. 

Runi isn’t sure what to say, but everyone else at the table seems to be expecting him to speak next. So he says, “What would I be required to do?”

Myr cocks his head on one side. “It will take some experimentation, but, initially, I propose, you come to my rooms, strip yourself naked while I regard you, and then bring me to climax while I charge the orb. Your mouth would probably be the best way to achieve the required effect.”

To that, Runi just nods. He is rarely rendered speechless by council meetings, but this, this is really impossible to process.

“Lord of Magic,” says Verne, “Runi’s the Chancellor. If this sort of thing would help, we could send a whore to your rooms.” 

“No,” says Myr. “I think it would need to be The Chancellor. I have never felt an effect like this with anyone else.”

“So you want to treat him as your whore,” says Charna, still clearly amused by the whole thing.

“Essentially. Or, the kingdom’s whore.” Myr shrugs like this is a normal thing to say, “As what you would be doing would aid the economic plans. And, if The Chancellor objects to being used, I could, of course, attend to his pleasure afterwards, if he would prefer.”

Runi still says nothing.

Verne leans forward. “Let him think about it, Lord of Magic. It’s a complicated thing to ask a human.”

“Yes, your majesty, although, if I may respectfully remind you I am myself a human.”

“Of course, of course you are. Let us adjourn.” 

*

Runi takes his supper in his chambers that evening and when, later, he’s attempting to do some work, there’s a knock on the door and it’s Charna, carrying two bottles of wine and two glasses. 

“Good evening, you majesty,” Runi says, wary. Charna’s visits are, at best, disruptive.

“Good evening. I thought you might want a chat.” Charna says the word ‘chat’ as if he has never said it before and grins his famous seductive grin. He’s wearing a gold jacket that matches his hair and looks like he was born a king. He wasn’t. When Runi first became chancellor, Charna was a 15 year old merchant’s son, who Runi selected to be Verne’s Prince Consort. The word about him was that he could buy lower and sell higher than traders twice his age. He seemed like an ideal addition to the court council. And he was certainly an arch persuader. However since he had married the queen, he liked to spend a good proportion of those persuasive skills persuading people into his bed.

Runi is trying his best to ignore these issues. He hopes Verne can too.

“What would you like to chat about,” says Runi, pushing back his chair from his desk as Charna flops onto the settle.

“You know what,” says Charna, pouring a generous glass of wine and handing it to Runi. “Your new admirer.”

“Oh,” says Runi. “Myr.”

“Yes Myr. Are you going to do it? Power up his magic with sex?” Charna looks delighted at the prospect.

“I don’t think I can,” says Runi. “I am not really that kind of…” he tails off, taking a big gulp of wine instead of finishing the sentence.

“Why not?” says Runi. “I’m very jealous. I’d do it. Actually I have a secret ambition to bed the entire council. I’m about halfway there.”

Runi splutters. “Halfway? Who have you had from the council?”

“Well, Verne, of course, you that time…” 

“That was one time,” Runi snaps back, colouring a little at the memory. “And I was drunk. You took advantage.”

Charna shrugs easily. “I suppose I did. Still counts though, so that’s Verne, you, oh, and Zem.”

“Zem!”

“Yes. Zem. Big Zem,” Charna grins that grin again.

“What’s he like?” Runi asks, despite himself.

“Surprisingly tender. Why? Do you like him?”

“He’d never look at me.” 

“Oh no, never,” Charna scoffs. “Who’d ever like you. A man so attractive that he can give someone magical powers.”

Runi looks into his glass. “If you believe that. He could be lying.”

“Why would he lie about it?”

“To get me into bed. To force me to do what he wants.”

Charna looks skeptical. “Runi, listen, there are easier way to get people into bed than tell the High Council they’re so hot you get magical powers from looking at them.” Charna says this like a man who’s filing that line away for future use.

“It just seems unlikely, that’s all. Why me? There are far more attractive people in the palace. There are more attractive people on the council. I think it’s some kind of trick. And what if those rumours about him are true? What if his mother is of the fey, like they say.”

“They always say that about anyone with magical powers. That they are of the fey. No one is really of the fey.”

“He does look unusual.”

“He’s just striking. Pale skin, silver hair.” Charna shrugs. “And Goren always said his mother was a kitchen maid.”

“He would though, wouldn’t he? He’s not going to admit to committing a depravity with fey when he was off in Perpetua.”

“I suppose,” says Charna. “But it can’t be true. A fey would never lie with a human. Fey hate humans.” 

“But if it is true and then I lie with Myr, I’ll be committing a depravity.” 

Charna’s eyes light up. He very clearly does not think this is a bad thing. “I suppose you will.”

“You really think I should do it, don’t you. You think I should go up to his rooms and suck his dick like a whore?”

Charna leans forward and tops up Runi’s glass, putting his spare hand on Runi’s knee. “It’s not about should. I know you have big plans for trade and I know those plans involve Myr finding a way to make a lots and lots of little magical orbs for Calisto and Caen to pay us richly for. And whether he’s telling you the exact truth or not, one thing he is telling you is that if you want him to do what you want, you need to do what he wants.”

Runi downs the contents of his glass. “Fine,” he snaps. Charna, as he often does, has cut right to the point.

*

Myr lives and work a suite of rooms at the top of the second tower. They are a little nicer than Runi’s rooms behind the long hall and Myr’s rooms have a glorious view, positioned over the balcony, which overlooks the Great Square with the Perpetua mountains in the distance.

Powered by wine and adrenaline, Runi takes the stairs fast up to Myr’s rooms, something he’s done many times before to discuss his trade arrangements, but this time, this is very different. 

Myr is at his desk tinkering with one of the tiny brass orbs. His face is full of concentration.

“Good evening, Lord of Magic,” Runi says, bowing, as was formal. “As you requested, I am here to assist you.”

“Now?” says Myr, clearly surprised. “I was expecting you to arrange some kind of appointment if you, decided to agree. It is rather late.”

“Oh, I see” says Runi awkwardly. He shifts from foot to foot not sure what to do.

“However,” Myr smiles, “I do enjoy working late. The night is a more peaceful time for the mind, don’t you find? And you are exactly what I need to make the task easier.” Myr turns the orb in his his long pale fingers and looks at Runi. “I could certainly use you now.” There’s something in his eyes. Is it… lust?

“Right,” Runi says, determined not to falter under Myr’s demanding gaze. “So…Do you want me to strip?” Over his breeches and shirt Runi is wearing an embroidered velvet jerkin. It has eight buttons closing it at the front. He wasn’t able to quite believe, as he put it on in front of a grinning Charna, that he would shortly be taking it off in front of Myr.

“Yes please, as we agreed,” Myr says, looking back down at the orb.

Runi, still stunned at what he’s doing, unfastens the jerkin and takes it off. After that he removes his shoes and his hose. Myr still hasn’t looked up. Taking a breath, Runi removes his breeches and adds them to a small pile of folded garments he’s placed on a chest at the end of Myr’s bed. 

He coughs delicately. Myr looks at him, regarding his thin shirt and bare legs. “Your shirt too, if you don’t mind,” Myr says, simply.

_If he didn’t mind_. Runi turns that phrase over. Did he mind? He had thought, he would mind this rather a lot. But, actually, his feelings about the situation are rather complex. He thinks, when he really examines his emotions he is finding this strangely pleasurable. Which is odd. 

The way Myr looks at him, the savage look in his, usually refined eyes, is _thrilling_.

His cock is also half hard under his shirt, something he will, in moments, be unable to disguise. 

He removes his shirt with Myr staring at him, that wild glitter in his pale eyes. He holds the brass orb in his hand and lets his eyes run languidly over Runi’s body from top to bottom. Runi, instinctively shuffles under the gaze. He finds himself turning slightly, trying to hide himself, the way he’s fully hard now, and when he does Myr says, “No, no, show it all to me. Display yourself.”

Runi feels himself start to colour. His cheeks feel hot. He’s ashamed, but he feels strangely satisfied. He spreads his legs a little, raises his arms and puts them both behind his head. His cock is hard, straining against his belly.

Gazing at him, Myr sighs. And the metal orb in his hand begins to spin.

His eyes flash with excitement. “It’s working. It’s working. Now quickly, put your mouth on me. Suck me.”

Runi makes a sudden gasp. His cock twitches. But Myr seems uninterested in any of this. He’s pulling down his own breeches. 

Runi moves over to the desk and sinks to his knees, clambering under it and swallowing Myr’s cock, which is already hard and eager for him. “Yes, yes, that’s right,” Myr says above him, clearly doing something with his equipment on his desk.

Runi moves quickly, gliding up and down Myr’s dick as fast as he can. He’s no expert cock sucker, has not had a great deal of practice, and he’s drooling everywhere as he takes it as deep as he can, but Myr is making very appreciative noises and Runi’s own dick is pulsing.

“Yes, more.” One of Myr’s hands is under the desk, winding in Runi’s hair. Myr’s grip is strong. Holding him in place, Myr takes his mouth viciously, fast and sudden, fucking up into his face. Runi can’t do much except hold on, trying not to gag or topple over as Myr fucks his face hard and comes down his throat. 

Before Runi can catch his breath, Myr withdraws and leans down, lifts Runi’s chin and very softly kisses him. The kiss is long and slow and Myr pushes his tongue into Runi’s mouth, gentle where his dick was so savage. 

Runi moans. He’s never felt so aroused in his life. The sharp taste of Myr’s seed is still in his mouth and he doesn’t want the kiss to end.

But it does and Myr whispers, “Look.” And lowers his hand so Runi can see what he’s holding. It’s the brass orb. And it’s glittering and twinkling the same way the silver ones do when there’s magic inside them.

Runi can’t believe it. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

“Yes,” says Myr. “It worked.” Myr moves back so Runi can unfold himself from under the desk. 

Runi stands carefully. His legs feel wobbly, his face feels bruised. He has to steady himself on the edge of Myr’s desk. “I should go, I suppose.”

“Yes,” says Myr, already turning back to his work.

Runi’s erection bobs as he totters across the room and pulls on his shirt. As it brushes over his nipples he feels sharp jolts of arousal. Every part of him is thrumming with desire. He needs to get back to his rooms and jerk himself. 

“And I’ll see you at the next council meeting,” says Myr.

“Yes, yes indeed,” says Runi as he bundles up his clothes and staggers out of the tower rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

At the next council meeting, Runi doesn’t know where to look or what to do with himself or how to act. He has convinced himself they all know exactly what he has done, although he has not told anyone about it. Not even Charna, who has been distracted by multiple persona projects involving stable boys and kitchen maids. 

He hopes initially, Myr won’t attend the meeting, but he does, looking as cool and ethereal as he always does, gliding in dressed in silver and cream, folding himself into a chair at the end of the table. Runi tries not to catch his eye. And in his avoidance, catches Charna’s, who smirks and flicks his tongue over the corner of his mouth. 

Runi tries not to colour at this lewd gesture. And has to battle his blood rising even more when Charna, of course it’s Charna, asks Myr, “How is your work with the brass orbs?”

“It has improved immensely,” says Myr. Runi looks down at the table, although he can sense Myr is looking right at him. “I have found a great source of power in the Chancellor. I am delighted. I hope to have further sexual encounters with him if he is willing.”

Runi realises he has to respond to this, so says, “Indeed. If it is useful. Of course.”

“That is good news,” says Verne, although she sounds very uneasy.

The reports from the other members of council wash over Runi, he’s thinking about how long it will be until he’s next ordered to Myr’s chambers. He’s both dreading and thrilled for it.

After the first time he’d found himself almost running across the square in his shirt, locking his door and flinging himself down on the settle, grabbing hold of his cock and working it hard and fast until he was arching into his hand, panting and biting his tongue not to scream out Myr’s name. Once it was done, however, he felt sick, full of shame and he’d taken himself to bed, barely sparing time to clean his body.

Runi pays a little attention to Zem’s update on Galash, he has spies in the province who claim Zagor is raising an army to take back Melkhor. Runi listens to the debate about whether they should take sides in the skirmish, but he doesn’t add his voice. For the first time in a council meeting, he feels he doesn’t really care.

*

It’s a week after his first visit to Myr’s chambers, when he receives a message from Myr asking him to return to his tower. The message doesn’t explain what Myr wants, so he assumes it will be the same as before. He’s right.

It’s afternoon this time, not late evening. The room is lit, not by candles, but by the winter sunlight coming through the window over Myr’s desk. The Perpetua mountains look like glass with the sun bouncing off them. 

After he’s called Runi in, Myr simply nods and Runi takes that as a sign he should continue exactly as before. So Runi stands in the middle of the room and removes all of his clothes, as before, getting hard as he does it, then poses, displaying his naked body for Myr. Myr gazes at him, and, once again, in Myr’s hand, a brass orb begins to spin.

Seeing that, Runi feels his hard dick jolt. He moves to Myr quickly, slips under the desk and takes Myr in his mouth. The whole thing happens in the same way, including the soft kiss afterwards. 

When the kiss breaks, Myr says, “I notice that once again you have become extremely aroused. Would you like me to see to you?”

Runi swallows, embarrassed. “I… No. It would not be seemly.”

“Or you could see to yourself here.”

“While you watch me?”

Myr smiles very slightly. “Yes. I think I would enjoy seeing you experience that pleasure.” Myr moves back so Runi can climb out from under his desk, but Runi doesn’t move.

“Can I do it here?” he says. 

“On your knees at my feet?” says Myr.

“Yes,” Runi replies, breathless. 

Myr reaches out and holds Runi’s chin. “I see no reason why not. Show me, Chancellor,” he says. Soft and cool.

Letting his chin rest in Myr’s palm, Runi takes himself, stroking his dick while he looks up into Myr’s silver eyes. Those eyes are quite beautiful and the feeling of being naked in front of Myr, of being at his feet, is overwhelming. His hand moves faster, and the whole thing only takes moments, he was so close before he even touched himself. So ready.

Myr sighs as Runi reaches his peak, his pale thumb slipping into Runi’s mouth as Runi gasps around it. 

When Runi has managed to get himself to his feet and pulled on a shirt, Myr says, “Forgive asking this question, but you seem to be deriving a great deal of pleasure from this arrangement.”

Runi meets Myr’s gaze, trying to look defiant. “I suppose I am. What of it?”

“I am not condemning you for it. I have also found it extremely enjoyable. However, your reactions make me wonder, would you prefer rougher treatment?”

Runi swallows under Myr’s silver gaze. “I…I…perhaps.”

“I ask because, a degree of cruelty does enhance the act for me. If it would be equally enjoyable for you, I could perhaps treat you more savagely. Or perhaps rope you, make you feel more used.”

Runi didn’t think it could be possible, but he feels his spent dick pulse a little as Myr coolly lists the way he could treat Runi during their encounters. Runi says. “Would it help? With your work I mean.”

Myr smiles his familiar slight smile. “Yes. I think it would help.”

“Perhaps we should, in that case.”

*

Myr does not attend the next council meeting, but Runi is still twitchy, still thinking about what Myr had said, what it might mean. Every night since the afternoon in Myr’s chambers he’s found himself in his bed, with his dick in his hand, thinking of silver eyes and cruelty. Kneeling before Myr with his wrist roped behind him, a slap across his face before he takes Myr’s dick in his mouth. He’s consumed by it, finds it almost impossible to concentrate on anything else, but, as yet, Myr has not called him to his rooms. 

Zem gives another update from Galash. Zagor has moved on Melkhor and fighting is already intense on the borders. It doesn’t effect Bow in any way Runi can tell. They export by sea to the Isle of Stars. They have never had need to go overland through Melkhor, and Bow and Melkhor do not share a border. When Zem suggests they prepare to acknowledge Zagor as the ruler of Galash and Melkhor, Runi thinks that seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. 

When the meeting is over, Charna catches him by the doorway, “Chancellor, are you feeling okay? You were very quiet in that meeting. Far less quiet than you usually are.”

Runi looks at him, at Charna’s handsome face. He thinks briefly of the night over a year ago when Charna had kissed him after a long and drunken feast, then pushes the image away, wondering what is wrong with him. He never thinks of that night. “I’m well, your majesty,” Runi says. 

“Sure,” says Charna. “I hope you’re being careful.”

*

Runi waits and waits for Myr to call him back to his chambers, ends up waiting nearly two weeks. When the message finally comes, he has to take a moment to force himself not to run straight there. Instead, he finishes his work, changes his clothes and walks across the square to Myr’s tower. 

Myr is not at his desk by the window this time. He is standing on the silver and blue carpet in the middle of his room. He is dressed, as he often is, all in white. He looks like a ghost. Pale skin and silver hair, white shirt and breeches. Like something ethereal, like something fey. Not human. He is holding a piece of rope. Runi’s heart beats a little faster when he sees it. 

“Strip yourself quickly, please,” says Myr. His voice sounds harder than usual. It makes Runi feel flustered. Hot and human, like a bundle of needs. He stumbles into the room, stands in front of Myr and pulls all his clothes off as quickly as he can. 

He doesn’t speak. When he’s done, Myr says, “Very good, turn around.”

Runi turns.

“Place you wrists together, behind you.”

Runi does that and, when Myr ties his wrist in place he is instantly, desperately hard. Myr spins him back around.

Myr sits on the chest at end of bed. “Now. Suck me.”

Myr has spread his legs but he hasn’t unfastened his breeches. Runi isn’t sure what to do, what’s required. He lowers himself to his knees and presses his face between Myr’s legs and finds himself making a wholly undignified whining noise, when he can find no way to get to his cock. Myr’s breeches are made of white leather. He’s already got drool on them. “You sound so desperate,” Myr says. “Let me help you.”

He reaches around and unfastens the laces at the front of his breeches. His cock springs free. Hard and ready, glittering at the tip. “There you are, now get me in your mouth,” Myr says, ending the statement with something like a snarl.

Runi swallows Myr’s cock greedily, but he doesn’t get to set the pace for more than a moment. Myr grabs Runi’s face with both hands and fucks up and deep. Runi whimpers as he gags and drools. After a few more vicious thrusts, tears prick his eyes, he’s struggling, testing the rope at his wrists, but there’s not give in it. All he can do it take it all. He can’t breathe and just when it feels like too much, Myr pulls back and deposits his seed all over Runi’s breathless face.

For a moment, Myr just holds Runi’s face, gazes at it. Then he leans in and kisses Runi’s sticky lips, licks a little at his seed. Strokes and kisses again, kisses deeper, takes Runi’s mouth again this time with his tongue.

“Good boy,” Myr whispers when he’s done. “Do you want to touch yourself?”

“Yes,” Runi says, soft and pleading.

“Ask me,” Myr hisses.

Runi swallows. “Can I? Can I touch myself?” His voice sounds small.

Myr smiles that slight, sly smile. “Use my title.”

Runi pauses. Is that what Myr wants? He wants him to kneel on the floor and beg to touch himself, talking to Myr formally, as if they are in front of the Queen herself. The thought of that makes him feel all the more lost and aroused

“Can I touch myself, Lord of Magic. Please,” he says, voice cracking over the last word.

Myr’s eyes are lusty, but his voice remains cool. “This arouses you doesn’t it. Being roped? Being made to beg?”

“Yes. Yes it does. Please let me.”

Myr leans forward and unties Runi’s hands as he say, “Yes, Chancellor. You may.”

Runi gasps as he puts his hands on himself and jerks fast. Even more so than before, he’s very quick to climax, very ready. He tries, even, he tries not to let it happen to fast, not to giveaway quite how desperate and eager and needy Myr’s treatment has made him. But, he splashes over Myr’s silver and blue carpet in moments.


	3. Chapter 3

Runi’s life is different now. He feels like between his visits to Myr’s chambers all he does is wait for those visits. He still completes his work, he has to spend his time somehow, but he doesn’t care about it as much as he did. But when he thinks back to how he used to be, obsessed with ways he could enrich the kingdom and little else, he is amazed that it ever mattered so much.

It is strange, to him, to remember this began as way to enrich the kingdom. 

Although, it has worked. The brass orbs are perfected, production has increased. They can still sell as much hand magic as they can produce and they can now produce a lot more of it.

To keep up with demand, Runi attends Myr about once a week. The visits are rough and wonderful. Myr ties him up, slaps him, has recently replaced most of his kisses with bites. Runi has to wear high collars now.

But Runi, even more so than Myr it seems, still wants more. When he’s not with Myr, when he’s dreaming of him, he imagines things he’s never had. He thinks of seeing Myr naked, his skin glittering all over. He thinks of Myr tying him down to the bed and fucking him, taking him however he pleases. These thoughts usually leave him panting in his own bed, frantically working his cock in his hand.

But Myr is still distant, still reserved. The longest conversation they have is when Myr explains his magical practices to Runi as he’s dressing, sat on the side of Myr’s bed pulling on his hose. “Energy management is always this issue with magic,” Myr says out of the blue.

Runi looks up from where he’s examining the rope burns on his wrists. Myr made him beg a long time for his own orgasm, pinching Runi’s nipples hard and snarling at him to “earn it” and “beg for pain”. Runi had found himself fighting to get out of the ropes. “Hmm,” he says to Myr, barely registering what’s being said.

“For example. If one wanted to produce an apple using transference. From the kitchen, like this,” Myr twists his wrist and an apple appears in his hand. “the energy to move the apple has to come from your own body. Not the energy to go all the way to kitchen a fetch the apple, but the energy it takes to move the apple. Imagine if you were sitting at your desk and pushed the apple along, like that. Do you see?”

“I suppose,” says Runi, pulling on his jerkin.

“This is the kind of magic you can do with a hand magic orb. So that amount of energy needs to be locked inside it. And it needs to come from me. Every time. That’s why I need you.”

Runi holds Myr’s gaze. “You can do anything you want to me,” he says, lust blindsiding him. 

Myr feels it too. He’s across the room, before Runi, and then crowding him back against the wall. He pins him there, holding his bruised wrists above his head and kisses him very deep and very slow. “I know,” Myr whispers when he breaks the kiss. “Like sending you away so I can complete my work.”

“Yes, Lord of Magic” Runi pants, too undone by the kiss to say much at all. “Anything you want.” But meaning every word.

*

Zagor takes Melkhor, and in the weeks and months that follow, invades and conquers three more of the seven provinces of the Northern Lands. Leaving him the warden of Galash, Melkhor, Karass, Zendel and Penopep. Only Bow and Perpetua are left. During the battle for Penopep, on Bow’s borders, the council's concerns grow as Zagor’s campaign has drawn closer and closer to their borders, and now, with the fall of Penopep, it is here.

“I have asked Caen for support, they have said no. That the Northern Lands must decide themselves how they are to govern themselves,” says Zem dully.

“That’s not surprising,” says Verne. “Caen won’t do anything that isn’t about securing their borders against the empire.” 

“They’re probably hoping we fall to Zagor and he stops us exporting magic to Calisto,” mutters Runi.

“Can we win a fight against him?” says Verne.

Zem shakes his head. “I doubt it very much.”

Runi says, “Then we shouldn’t just sit here waiting for him to come for us. We should send a peace envoy. Negotiate something.”

Myr leans back a little. “Or, there are the protective wards.”

“What do you know about the wards?” says Verne, looking at Myr suspiciously.

“That there are wards on the border between Penopep and Bow, that can be charged to kill anyone who attempts to cross.”

“There are? But that’s fey magic,” says Runi.

Myr gives Runi a sudden sharp look, but says, “Yes. It is. They are the same as the wards between Bow and Perpetua. My father worked with the fey to create them. This was during your parents reign,” he nods to Verne. “It was, of course, kept very secret.”

“And how to you know about them?” say Zem.

“I have my father’s books. According to what he wrote they were never complete. There are significant gaps, but no invader would be able to tell where it was clear to cross. They’d lose half their army before they found safe passage through.”

“That is better than being completely exposed,” says Verne.

Myr nods. “They will need to be charged however. They’ve not been live for decades. But I think I should be able to complete the task in a day or a little more.” 

“Thank you, Lord of Magic,” says Verne. “Do that immediately. Take Captain Zem to assist you.”

*

The following evening, Runi receives a message in his room. It is from Myr, requesting his presence in the guard house. Runi knows that is where Myr has been working with Zem. He hurries straight there with some trepidation. 

Zem meets him in the receiving room and ushers Runi through into the candle lit study beyond. Myr is sitting at a long table. A large map of Bow almost covers it and all along the border with Penopep are marker flags, some of them tinged with the glitter of Myr’s magic. Myr is slumped in his chair, head down, cradled in his crossed arms. His white shirt is crumpled and stained.

“Myr,” Runi says careful, walking towards him. “Myr, are you feeling unwell.”

Myr lifts his head. His complexion looks grey. His face drawn, skin tight over high cheekbones. “Runi,” he says in a low scrape of a voice, “I went too fast, drained all my energy. I need you to…”

“Oh,” says Runi. “Oh, I see.” He looks over his shoulder at Zem. “Captain Zem, I need you to leave us briefly, I must attend to Myr.”

“No,” Myr manages. “He needs to stay. I need him too. I’m too weak to take from you directly. I need you to give it to Zem.”

Runi turns back to Myr. “What? How?”

“As if he’s me.”

“Suck him?” Runi says, his eyes widening. He looks at Zem again. “Captain?”

“It has been explained,” says Zem in his low voice. “How it works. I understand. I am willing.”

Runi steps closer to Myr and crouches down until their eyes are level. “Please,” he whispers. “I don’t want to.”

Myr raises a shaky arm and takes hold of Runi’s jaw. It’s a possessive gesture that makes Runi feel weak. “It has to be done,” Myr says, voice crackling. He nods towards the map and, as Runi follows his gaze he sees one of the silver lines on the border flicker and fade, Myr makes a whimpering noise. “Please, Runi. It needs so much from me.”

“Does it have to him?”

“Yes. I will watch you. I will enjoy it. Do you desire him?”

Runi can hardly bear to say it. “Yes,” comes out on a cracking breath. “I always have.” He feels his cheeks flush.

“Good. Give yourself to him. Do it for me, Runi. Do it for Bow.” As Myr says that some of his glimmer seems to return. And something else. As Runi looks at him then, he cannot quite believe Myr is human.

Runi turns back to Zem. “Captain Zem, you are, you say, willing.”

“Of course.”

Runi is already removing his clothes. “I understand from Charna you are a gentle lover.”

Zem frowns. He doesn’t say anything. He looks a little surprised by this statement, although Runi isn’t interested in finding out which part of it has caused this reaction.

“In any case. Don’t be. Treat me roughly,” Runi says, pulling off his shirt and showing his naked body to Zem and then to Myr. When Myr looks at him he makes a soft sighing noise and the part of the border on the map that flickered out, glows sliver again. Myr looks delightedly at Runi, Runi smiles back. 

He turns around and gets onto his knees in front of Zem, pulling his breeches open. He reaches up and takes one of Zem’s big hands and places it in is own hair. “Hold me like this,” Runi says to Zem. 

Zem nods.

“And hit me,” Runi says, “Slap me around the face.”

“Chancellor I…” Zem tries.

But before he can finish, from behind them, Myr says, “Hit him. He likes it.” It’s the loudest thing Myr has said so far. 

Zem cracks his palm across Runi’s face. It’s harder than Myr has ever hit him, but he does like it. He’s going to have a mark there, on his face, where anyone can see it. Naked on his knees, he’s burning with shame, his dick is hard.

Myr says, “Make him take it. Fuck his face.”

And Zem obeys. Holding Runi in place and feeding him his cock, viciously, not giving him a chance to get used to the intrusion before his hips snap and he starts pounding Runi in the face, obeying everything he’s been told.

“Harder,” snarls Myr. “Make him take it deeper. Right down his throat. He can. He can swallow it all. He knows how to suck cock.”

Runi chokes on Zem’s dick as Zem obeys. His eyes are streaming. Zem is so strong, all he can do is let Zem make use of him. Zem pumps down his throat, Myr snarls more humiliating words of encouragement. And then it’s done and Zem is shooting down his throat, gasping and groaning with pleasure.

Something changes in the room. Something like the light behind him. And when he turns to see, almost all of the border on the map is glittering silver. And Myr is sitting up and smiling broadly, his skin glowing again. He looks at Runi with soft loving eyes and mouths, “Thank you.” It’s beautiful.

*

A few days later, Queen Verne comes to visit Runi in his chambers. He is surprised to see her. The Queen, if she wished to discuss something with him, would normally send for him to visit her. But here she is, in his chambers, looking, as she often does, serene and elegant and a little awkward. Runi was 12 when came to live in the palace, Verne was 11. Up until recently, she probably knew him better than anyone in the world.

“It’s very good news about the wards,” she says, gliding in and lowering herself onto the settle. “Zem gave me a full report.”

“Oh,” says Runi, feeling a strange lump in his throat. “How full?”

“Very, but, Runi, I did know.” Verne smoothes out her long green skirts. “Myr made it very clear in the council meetings what he required of you and then, the way you’ve been behaving. It was clear. Even Charna noticed.” She flashes her eyebrows.

“I see. Can I assure you, your majesty, it is all for the good of the kingdom.”

“Yes. I understand that. But you must also understand that it is not typical for a Lord Chancellor to behave as a whore, even for such a good, and I am not sure if it is truly seemly. These are difficult times for Bow. We have plenty of coin, but, even with those wards, we all watch the border. Everyone goes to sleep thinking they will wake with a knife at their throat.” 

“I am aware. And you know I am doing everything to deal with that situation. Perhaps we should reconsider sending an envoy. But,” Runi pauses, “What has Zagor to do with Myr and I?”

“Lord Chancellor, Runi, I think people would like to feel safe and proud of this land and what it means to live here. I think you and Myr should marry.”

Runi has to swallow a gasp. “What Myr and I do, it isn’t really, quite like that.”

“You have regular sexual congress.” 

“I suppose, but I don’t think we want to get married.”

“Perhaps you don’t. But war is coming, you are of the court. Do you think I wanted to marry Charna?” says Verne.

Runi cannot think of anything to say.

*

A little later, Runi makes his way to Myr’s tower to tell him the news. Perhaps it is the coming war in the air, but he seems quite unsurprised by it. 

“I thought it might be suggested,” he says. “Bow believe in the power of the pairing. That’s why your monarchs must all be married. Thats one of the reasons I can gain so much power from congress with you. Matings, weddings, they all have so much worth here. It’s in the air.”

“So you want to?” says Runi, unsure what to thing. His world keeps on shifting under him, changing.

Myr shrugs. “I don’t have any objection. I have no faith so the Queen can bless the union.”

“Afterwards,” Runi takes a breath, “I would be expected to live up here, with you. In your rooms.”

“It would make things easier in many ways if you moved into my rooms.”

Runi looks around, thinking that if he lived in these rooms he would never get anything done again. 

Myr takes a step closer. “Although, you should probably keep your rooms for your work during the day.” He’s close enough now he can touch Runi’s chest. It feels hot even through all Runi’s clothes. “But at night, you can come here, and lie with me. If you would like that.”

“I would. I would like that,” says Runi weakly, admitting something to Myr he isn’t sure he’d even admitted to himself.

“Would you?” Myr says, almost purring, “and would you also like to ask me to wed you in the traditional manner. On your knees.”

Runi doesn’t need asking twice. He drops to his knees in front of Myr, looks up at him from a now familiar angle. “Lord of Magic,” he says, “will you marry me?” He leans in and places a kiss on Myr’s leather covered dick.

“Of course I will,” says Myr, sounding softer than he ever has, as he drops to a crouch and takes Runi’s hands.

“And when we are married,” Runi says, rushing through his words, “will you fuck me? Will you take me to your bed and fuck me?”

“If you wish, I will be glad to. But you know this would mean this is no longer about the good of the kingdom, about you servicing me out of a sense of duty.”

“No,” says Runi, “but it hasn’t been that for me for a long time.”

“Me neither,” says Myr, softly, leaning close and kissing him. 

*

Runi glides through the weeks to the wedding. When it comes, it is simple and beautiful, the great hall hung in white and silver. The kingdom did, as Verne had suggested, rally behind such an attractive match, celebrating despite the ever present concerns of what might find it’s way over the border from Penopep. 

Myr and Runi were both known as masters of the mind, both respected members of Bow’s highest council. Their match, in Bow, made perfect sense. That might be the public story, but Runi thinks to himself that the citizens of Bow would react differently to their pairing if they knew how he and Myr behaved when they were alone together. He’s been day dreaming about Myr taking him to bed and using him cruelly for frantic, dreamy weeks.

_But they never get to be alone together. Runi never gets to Myr’s bed._

The wedding’s blessing is barely done, when they hear it, running, screaming, the distinctive clashing of weapons. The smell of smoke. The great hall transforms before Runi’s eyes. Courtiers scream and run. Guards draw their swords. Zem leads them out of the hall. Myr is with them, racing out to the battle in his wedding clothes, silver hair streaming.

Runi is no warrior, panicking he makes for his chambers. He isn’t sure why. It seems like a place he could go, a place he could be. 

He’s never seen the man standing in the middle of his study before. 

He is a large, bald man, wearing an armoured breast plate, metal gauntlets, leather breeches that barely reach his knees. No one in Bow dresses this way. He’s definitely one of the invaders, and from the way he’s standing, regarding Runi, Runi is certain who he must be.

“Zagor?”

“Runi Assam,” says the man. “I’ve come a long way for you. I understand you are quite the prize.”


	4. Chapter 4

Runi is in his wedding clothes, his robes of state, his chain of office, but he feels naked before this imposing man, who’s probably a foot taller than him and more than twice his weight. There’s no way he can resist when Zagor strides across the room and takes hold of him, a big hand on each shoulder, like he’s greeting an old friend, except that the grip is too firm and almost painful.

“I’m sure you are aware,” Zagor whispers, grinning mouth close to Runi’s face, “what happens during a conquest. To the conquered.”

Runi shudders. He looks up into big black eyes, but he is High Chancellor, and he pulls some defiance from somewhere. He raises his chin, “Do you intend to rape me, Lord Zagor?”

“Is that what you think I have planned for you? How interesting. I suppose it is one option. Sadly, however, that will have to wait. But I do intend to use you, for a very particular purpose. Come with me.”

Zagor spins Runi around in his arms and marches him out of the room. In the corridor outside are two of the invading soldiers, wearing breast plates like Zagor’s. Zagor hands Runi to them and he is escorted, very firmly to the council room. As they go, they pass more of the soldiers. There are invading soldiers everywhere, and bodies. Runi tries not to look at the bodies.

In the corner of the council chamber is one of the chairs that is normally set at the table. Runi is led over to it. His robe and chain of office are removed and he is pressed down into it in his shirt and breeches. 

“That will do nicely,” says Zagor. “Just shackle him, so he doesn’t spoil the surprise. On of the soldiers obeys, coming forward and shackling Runi’s wrists behind the chair. He’s had his wrists bound so many times in the past months and it makes him think of Myr. _Where is Myr?_ Is the battle still raging? Is it lost? Is _he_ lost? “That’s perfect,” says Zagor when it’s done. “Apart from one final touch. Lena.”

There’s a tall woman, dressed in white stood just behind Zagor, Runi didn’t notice her come in, perhaps she had been here all along. She steps forward. “My lord.”

“Please, put the collar on him.”

“Yes, my lord,” she says and approaches Runi with something in her hand. When she takes a few steps closer, he can clearly see it’s a thick iron collar, more like something for an animal than a human.

She places it around Runi’s neck, with his wrists shackled behind him he can’t do much to resist. She locks it in place and lets it go. It’s heavy and Runi feels the weight of it settle on his shoulders. He shifts and feels it move. It feels wrong. Strange. Like it has magic in it.

“Perhaps you should explain, Lena,” says Zagor. “The High Chancellor is a man of learning and I’m sure he will appreciate your skill in these matters. I understand he has quite a thing for magical abilities.”

Lena smiles. Her mouth is very thin. “This collar is from Ka, Chancellor. It is made of specially spelled iron. It means no one will be able to use magic on your person or very close to you. Iron is known for its dampening properties when it comes to magic. It is most effective on the fey of course, but all magic is fey magic at its heart, although some gifted humans have learnt to practise limited magic, such as Goren of the North and his son. Who I understand is your lover.”

“Although some say Goren’s son is, himself, of the fey,” says Zagor behind her.

“He’s not,” says Runi. “That’s just a rumour.”

Zagor moves closer and touches the side of Runi’s neck just above the collar, “Perhaps, but did you know even talented humans can’t do magic without some connection to the fey. For a time, your husband’s father, had to spend months of every year with fey to derive the energy to create his great works. Now his son is achieving greater and greater things with no obvious connection to the fey, unless he is one, and therefore needs no more than that.”

“You don’t know anything about that,” Runi says tightly.“You don’t know anything about him.” Why is everyone talking about Myr. Is this about him? Why else would he be collared like this, with something preventing magic? Was it to prevent Myr rescuing him. But what could Myr really do? Myr’s powers were impressive, but were mostly limited to the transference of small objects, like the apple he used to demonstrate. There were stories that the fey had all kind of powers, that they could appear and disappear, at will, using transference on their own bodies, and even that they could see the future and read throughs. But Myr had never shown any such abilities. 

Zagor leans closer, fingers playing on Runi’s throat. “I think it might be you who knows nothing about him. You who has hurried into marrying him. But you are about to learn a little more about him, including how much he cares for you. But I need you to stay quiet while I make sure he understands what I want from him. Where is my Captain of Guard.”

From behind Zagor, Zem steps forward, “Here, sir.”

Runi’s eyes go wide. “Zem? You’re with…. you’re with Zagor?”

Zem says nothing, but he nods a stern affirmative.

“Zem has decided he would rather work for me,” Zagor says. “Some people do prefer to take the winning side. And he has been very useful over the past months. Letting us know about the safe crossings in your magical wards for example, and, of course, letting us know all about you and how special you are to Bow’s Lord of Magic.”

“You’re a traitor?” Runi says, staring at Zem.

Again, Zem doesn’t speak, but this time, he smiles very slightly, as he pulls a dagger from his belt and holds it to Runi’s throat.

“Good,” says Zagor, looking at him. “I’m going to speak to your husband now. Perhaps he will co operate, but I doubt it. And that’s where you are going to come it.”

Two more soldiers appear from somewhere, carrying a screen, which is placed in front of Zem and Runi, shielding them from the room. Runi glances at Zem, but Zem just stares straight ahead.

In the council rooms beyond the screen, he hears Zagor say, “Good day to you, Lord of Magic.”

And then Myr’s voice, his heart gives a little skip, Myr, his husband, so close, saying, “Lord Zagor. I congratulate you on your victory. May I enquire of the safety of the rest of court. My Queen, her consort,” he pauses briefly, “the High Chancellor?”

“We can get to that. But I believe your queen is held by my men in her chambers and her consort is in the dungeons.”

“I see.” There is a scrape of furniture. It sounds like Myr is sitting down. 

“Lord of Magic, I am sure you are aware that there are many rumours that claim you are of the fey.”

“I’ve heard them,” says Myr. 

“The truth is, my lord, it matters not if you are of the fey or not. I know you have great abilities with transference, and we’ve long known talented humans can master that, but you have been doing ever greater things. Those wards for example. It would be truly unheard of if a human had created something like that without fey assistance.”

“I didn’t create them,” says Myr. “I charged them.”

“I see. But such a feat does make me wonder what other magical abilities you may have, hidden. It hasn’t escaped my consideration that you have abilities, such as human transference. Which is why I’ve taken some precautions to ensure you don’t snap your fingers and disappear.”

“And what precautions would those be?” says Myr sounding tired of the whole thing.

“Let me show you, Lord of Magic.”

The screen is swept away by soldiers. Myr is sitting on the far side of the council table, facing Runi with Zagor is opposite. Runi can only see his back. Runi’s eyes meet Myr’s. Myr stares at him, horrified.

Runi sees Myr swallow. “I… I see.”

“Let me,” says Zagor, “save us a little time here. If you are intending to deny that you care for this man, that your marriage is for show only, I will test that statement by having him flogged in front of you. So, if you do want to make such a claim, I hope you are sure.”

Myr looks at Zagor, then at Zem. “So, you are a traitor, Zem? That is how they found their way through my wards.”

Zem nods.

Myr looks back to Zagor. “I could move that knife with my mind. I could place it through Zem’s heart instead. Or yours.”

“You could try,” Zagor says, replying as if this is a casual conversation. “But I’m sure you’ve noticed that collar he wears. It’s from Ka, it dampens any magic that comes near it. And if you were to make an attempt, in fact, if you were to try any magic at all without my express permission, please believe that he will suffer. And, just to be very clear, if you remove yourself from this castle using magic or otherwise, I will kill him in the worst way I can. Burning or, perhaps flogging, that can take,” he pauses as if considering, “days.”

“I see,” Myr says. He sounds very cautious and he watches Runi as he speaks. “It appears you have thoroughly ensnared me. To what purpose?”

“What do I want with a creature like you? A creature who seems to be able to perform fey magic but has human emotions, emotions I can manipulate by imprisoning someone he loves, you are the greatest prize in the world.”

“For what? What do you want me to do for you?”

“The fey used to control all of this land, didn’t they? All the way to the Diamond River and Caen? That’s why Calisto stopped their conquests at that border. They’re scared of what lies beyond it. They think this place is still tainted by their magic and the things the fey did to the humans who were living here, before they were driven back with iron weapons.”

“We’ve all heard those stories.”

“They’re wonderful stories. I particularly like the ones about the magical armies the fey controlled. Enslaved humans who they controlled by will. Soldiers who would never tire and never revolt, who would fight until they dropped dead.”

“That’s not real. Magical armies. That can’t be done. Even by the fey themselves.”

But Zagor isn’t listening. “With something like that we could take Caen. And once we had Caen’s army enslaved to our will, we could take Calisto.”

“It can’t be done,” says Myr again.

“Perhaps you could _try_ , Lord. For me. Your husband’s life as a prisoner could be quite comfortable if you did. If not, well, I am not sure how he would respond to a lashing or a rape. Perhaps that’s what I’ll do if you make no progress.”

“That’s not… I can’t.” Myr looks again at Runi. He looks genuinely shaken.

“I know it must feel strange. I doubt anyone’s been able to control you for years, have they. Not since you became strong enough to get out from under your father’s hand. He must have needed a powerful source of fey energy for what he did. Was it you? How did he extract it?”

Myr’s jaw is shaking, but he doesn’t speak for a moment. “Zagor I will not be able to…”

“I must not be being clear.” Zagor looks away to Zem, he nods.

Zem punches Runi in the side of the head. It’s so hard and so fast he sees nothing but black and stars for a moment. When he recovers his mouth is full of blood. He spits it out and it trails down his shirt.

“Please think again, fairy prince,” Zagor says. “The only way you can help him is to obey me.”

“Lord Zagor, please don’t. This has nothing to do with Runi, with the Chancellor. I don’t think what you want is possible,” Myr says this in a small broken voice. Runi has never heard a voice like that come from Myr. It’s horrible.

“I understand you have some reservations. But I’m generous, I’ll shut him up in the dungeons, unmaimed, if you get on your knees and promise me you’ll _try_ ,” says Zagor.

Something seems to have broken in Myr. His silver eyes are grey. He slips off his chair, walks around the table and kneels in front of Zagor. “I’ll try,” he says, his voice tight with rage. Runi’s heart flips at the sight of it. Myr on his knees. Myr offering to try and do something he’s claimed is impossible.

“Very good,” Zagor snaps. “You have three days.”

*

When Zagor and Myr have left to discuss business, Runi is taken to the dungeons under the castle.

After that he’s left alone. It’s dark and cold in the cell and Runi wants nothing more than to be safe with Myr. In his bed. Where he was supposed to be the night after his wedding. That wedding seems a long way away now.

He doesn’t know how long it is before the cell door opens and another shackled prisoner is brought in. It takes him a moment to realise who it is.

“Charna?”

“Runi?” Charna takes a deep breath. “Oh, thank god you are alive. They wouldn’t tell me anything about you, about anyone.”

It’s dark in the cell, but Runi can tell Charna is covered in bruises. And also, that he’s naked.

“Charna,” Runi says, not keeping the shock from his voice. “What did they do to you.”

“Nothing much,” says Charna. “They threatened to a great deal of very unpleasant things if Verne didn’t comply with some strange ideas. But they didn’t actually do any of them beyond a beating. You?”

“Same,” says Runi blankly.”

“Oh,” says Charna. “Myr?”

“Yes.”

“When he told me what he was planning, I told him that it would never work. Not on Verne. She didn’t choose me, I doubt she would have married anyone if it wasn’t for the way Bow is about everyone being paired. And after the way I’ve behaved, the way I’ve humiliated her with palace gossip, I didn’t think for a moment she cared for me, but I’ve never seen her look broken like that. He made her watch me being stripped and beaten, and when he said he’d rape me, make her watch that, she was ready to offer him anything. He wants her to marry him. I think she’ll do it.”

Runi takes a breath. “I suppose that does make sense.”

“Does it?” says Charna. “She is beautiful, but he doesn’t need to marry her if he wants her, does he?”

“It’s not for that,” says Runi. “Bow is different to most lands. Like you mentioned, we have the power in the pairing. If you marry the king or queen of Bow, if you become the consort, like you, and you have equal power. It would make him ruler, not a conqueror. Ruler by right. Ruler of Bow.”

“Does it make a difference.”

“It might,” says Runi, thinking. “He wants to raise a magical army and perhaps one might need to control a magical land for that.”

“That’s what he wants Myr for? Can Myr do that?”

“He says he can’t. But…” Runi tails off.

“But what?”

“But do any of us really know what Myr can or can’t do. Zagor seems to think he can magic himself out of the castle. Vanish if he wants to. He’s told him he’ll burn me alive if he does that.”

“What if he vanishes with you?” Charna says.

Runi taps the iron collar. “I think that’s what this is for.”

Distantly Charna says, “He’ll have to kill me if he wants to marry Verne, won’t he? He says he will need it to be a public execution. Flogging.”

Runi swallows. “If Myr hasn’t made any progress in three days he’s going to make him watch something awful being done to me.”

Charna doesn’t reply. Neither of them say anything for a while.

*

Runi tries not to think about what might be coming in three days. He thinks instead, that, as dungeons go, this could be a lot worse. Not that he has any experience of dungeons, beyond the costing and administration of them. They are fed, usually more than once a day, they have a blanket each, a real blessing in Charna’s case, who still has nothing in the way of clothing. 

Perhaps this treatment means Myr and Verne are doing what Zagor requires of them. Perhaps Myr has worked out how to make a magical army.

But on the third day Zem appears in the doorway, flanked by a squad of guards. Charna does not seem to notice the back up. He flies at Zem, yelling out, “You fucking traitor. You fucker.”

Zem catches Charna’s wrist in his hand as he reaches him, shoving him aside into the arms of one of his guards, who holds him fast. “Good evening, your majesty,” Zem says, backhanding Charna around the face, “Both of you are required upstairs.”

Charna is struggling in the arms of the man who holds him, his lip is split from Zem’s blow. “Where’s Verne? Where is she?” he splutters out.

Walking into the cell and pulling Runi to his feet, Zem saunters back to the doorway and pats Charna on the cheek. “Be patient, sire,” he says.

When they reach the door of the state dining room, Lena is there. She walks over to Runi, but she doesn’t touch his collar. She carefully opens his mouth with one silk-gloved hand and places two leaves on his tongue. 

“Swallow,” she says, holding his mouth closed.

Runi, having no other choice, does so.

Charna looks at him. “What was that?” he snaps. “What did you give him?”

“Don’t be greedy, your majesty,” says Zem. “We just didn’t think you needed any.”

Charna looks at him savagely. “I can smell what that is. We used to sell it at Longsight.” He turns to Runi. “Runi, that was a pleasure drug, take deep breaths, it’ll be okay. However you feel. You’ll be okay.” Charna has gone very pale. “Very soon, you aren’t going to be able to think about anything except being fucked, being touched. But I’ll take care of you. I think they’re going to rape you, Runi. I’ll try and persuade them to take me instead.”

Runi feels completely normal. But he can see from Charna’s face, that is going to change. He doesn’t know what to say.

Runi has got so used to Charna being naked that he only realises how humiliating it must be for him when he follows him into the same hall where he and Verne presided over an uncountable number of state banquets. And now he’s being brought in by guards, like this. But he walks in like a king. Runi follows and then those thoughts seem to drain away. 

He starts to feel… _good_.

There are only three people sat at the long table, although a line of armed guards stand behind the. The table itself is mostly clear. Only a few pieces of the meal they’ve eaten remain. One of two baskets of bread and bottles of oil. Zagor sits on the consort throne, the seat Charna normally occupies, next to Verne, who sits in her usual spot. She has a delicate silver chain connecting her wrists. 

Myr sits, where Runi normally does, on the other side of the consort throne.  
Zagor claps his hands as Charna and Runi are jostled into positions, standing on the floor below the dais on which the table is set. “Wonderful,” he booms out. “Wonderful. Some entertainment tonight.”

The guards stay by Charna and Runi, Zem and Lena walk around to take their seats at the table. Zem next to Verne, Lena beside Myr.

Runi looks at Myr. Myr is staring at him. He looks disgusted. “What have you done to him?” he snarls.

“Why nothing. As agreed. He has been fed and kept unharmed. Isn’t that true High Chancellor.

“It’s true,” Runi says and his words come out as a breathy gasp.

“I don’t mean that. What have you given him? He’s drugged.”

“It’s Tiger’s Eye,” says Charna, next to Runi. “They gave him Tiger’s Eye outside. It’s only just starting.”

Myr’s chair scrapes as he stands. “I’m leaving,” he says. 

“If you don’t sit down, I’ll cut his hand off,” Zagor says, says it like it’s a very normal thing to say. “Perhaps he’ll enjoy it.”

Myr is white with anger. He looks at Zagor as if he’s assessing the truth of his statement. His jaw is set hard, but, after a short moment, he sits. 

“Now, if I may return to business. I have been told by my Captain of Guard many interesting things about the High Council of Bow. Some are strategy, of course, and some are idle gossip. But gossip can serve a purpose too. And I have it on some authority that you two are both sluts. So, fuck.”

Runi feels that last word in his bones. “Yes,” he whispers to himself. _Charna_. Yes. He realises he’s thrown his head right back, showing his throat. He’s panting and his nipples are hard. 

“How dare you,” Charna snaps back. “I am the Queen’s consort.” 

“Yes. You are. But is that a problem? You’ve fucked him before. Apparently you’ve lain with everyone in the palace. Lena even says you made lewd suggestions to her. She’s taken vows of chastity to enhance her powers, but I’m sure that only encourages filth like you. Now, as you can see, he is willing. Fuck him.”

Runi nods and takes a step towards Charna. “It’s okay,” he says, low and sweet. “I want you to.”

“Runi no,” Charna’s eyes are wild. “It’s the drug.”

Runi reaches Charna and touches his bare chest. “It’s not, Charna. We’ve done it before. Kiss me,” Runi says, a note of pleading in his voice as he realises there is nothing he wants more.

“Go on,” calls out Zagor. “Kiss him. He needs it. Why are you making him suffer like this?”

“I do,” Runi pants, stroking Charna’s chest. Their lips are a breath apart. “I do need it. I want you Charna. Why do you think I chose you for Verne’s consort. I wanted to have you around. I was hoping you’d fuck me. If you won’t kiss me I’ll…I’ll…”

Runi drops onto his knees in front of Charna and kisses his dick. It’s soft but it give a small jerk when Runi’s mouth touches it. The scent of musk fills Runi’s head and it’s so good. Runi leans in an runs his tongue over it. He can hear the sound of Zagor laughing, and then he feels Charna’s hands on him, pulling him back to his feet.

“You don’t need to do that, Runi,” Charna says, pleading.

“I do. I need to get you hard so you can fuck me,” Runi whines out. “Please Charna, please. Fuck me. Or just, just kiss me. Touch me please. _Please_.”

“Do you need a further incentive, prince consort?” Zagor says, gesturing to the guard behind Verne, who steps forward and presses a knife to her throat.

“Don’t bother with theatrics,” sneers Charna, “I know you need her alive.”

“Do I? Doesn’t the queen have a younger sister? Utti, is it? Have we killed her?”

“No, your majesty,” says Zem.

“Ah, very good. So I could kill this one and marry the younger heir. How old is your sister, my queen?”

“She’s ten,” Verne chokes out, the knife pressing close enough that there is blood on her white throat.

“Ten. Well, well, well. Not my usual style, but if it is necessary to become the master of this land of magic, I suppose I will have to bed her. I think that should work. I’d ask our constitutional expert, but sadly he is only able to talk about getting fucked, right now. On the other hand, perhaps you’d like to to your duty, prince and avoid us all that trouble.”

Charna gives Zagor one more hateful look before he leans inclose to Runi. “It’s okay,” he whispers into Runi’s mouth. “I’ll do my best to make this okay for you,” and then he kisses him. 

Their lips meeting feels so intense Runi thinks he might come from it. The sensation flies through him from his mouth to his dick and he’s hard and squirming. Charna holds Runi’s head still and slips his tongue between his lips, Runi opens his mouth as wide as he can. He slips his hands down Charna’s bare flanks. He wants Charna inside him, wants to be taken.

When Charna breaks the kiss, Runi moans, almost toppling over as he tries to chase Charna’s mouth. Someone holds him up. It’s the guard behind him, he moves in his arms, trying to kiss him too. He’s very handsome. 

“So how to you want me to do this?” Charna says nastily. “You want me to fuck him on the floor.”

“No, no. We’ll hardly be able to see anything. Bring him up here. You can use the table.” Charna takes a hard breath and eyes Zagor. But the guard holding Runi is already, dragging him up to the dais. He’s bent over it, his body pushed down on the cloth. The edge of the table presses against his dick and he moans with pleasure, squirms and rolls his hips. He can’t think of anything better. To be fucked like this, in front of everyone, by Charna. 

Then he looks up and sees Myr, right in front of him. And he thinks, no, he can think of something better. He looks up at Myr and says his name, “Myrrr,” he breathes. “It should be you fucking me. Tell him. Tell him you’re my husband. You should be the one to fuck me.”

He can sense Myr’s anger, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters. He just wants Myr to fuck him.

Myr is shaking with rage. “This is revolting. I demand you stop this,” says Myr to Zagor.

“It’s been three days,” says Zagor. “I told you what would happen if I saw no progress from you. You have to learn. Or would you rather I wait until the drugs wear off and have a group of my guards do it. Or do it myself”

Runi sighs up at Myr. “Don’t be angry,” he murmurs. “I like it. Kiss me. Touch me, please.”

Behind him Runi can feel something that must be Charna being brought up behind him. Runi can feel his hands on his ass, removing his breeches. 

“Can I at least have some oil.” That’s Charna’s voice. Runi watches Myr silently pick up a bottle of oil from the table and pass it over Runi’s head. He feels it dripping on to his lower back and Charna’s fingers pushing it down to his hole. 

He moans out again. “Myr,” he says again, “it should be you. You were going to on our wedding night.”

“Oh dear. Did I interrupt something. How sad,” says Zagor “Don’t stop,” he adds, to Charna. Runi feels Charna’s fingers pressing into him. It feels astonishingly, overwhelmingly good. He presses back on to them

“You did,” Runi moans at Zagor. “I hate you. I want Myr to fuck me.”

“That’s very sweet,” says Zagor. “But I doubt that would achieve the required outcome. I know you’re barely aware of this, but I am punishing my Lord of Magic for his lack of progress. Letting him fuck you would be no punishment. This on the other hand… Now, your majesty. Get on with it. he’s clearly ready.”

Runi moans and presses back. He feels Charna’s dick at the entrance to his hole and then, pushing into him. It feels so good he moans, gazing into Myr’s eyes.

Myr sighs. He leans closer and puts his thumb on Runi’s lower lip. “Are you alright, Runi,” he whispers.

Runi squirms on Charna’s dick. It feels so good. “I’m good. I like it. The drug is good. I want you though. I want the things you do to me.”

“I know. Perhaps I will be able to later.”

“When you make the army?”

“When I make the army, yes.” Myr says, tears glittering in his silver eyes.

“I want you to hurt me,” Runi says. “When he threatens to flog me and make you watch I…” 

Inside Runi Charna finds an angle that feels so good. He moans and arches and Myr strokes his face,” Runi, don’t…” 

But Runi needs to tell him, wants to tell him. Panting he continues. “I want to see you, watching me like that, I want to see it turning you on. Your face when I’m suffering and it’s making you hard, it’s the greatest thing I…”

Runi can’t speak anymore. It’s all too much, great wave of pleasure. He lets himself fall into it, feeling nothing but Charna inside him and Myr stroking his face.

He doesn’t know how long he’s like that, suspended in pleasure, before, behind Runi, Charna comes with what sounds like a grunt of rage.

“Very good,” says Zagor. “Now, lets see if you can do better over the next three days. Next time, lord, there will be no drug, and it won’t be a friend who does it. You understand me. This was just to give you the _smallest_ idea of what I will put him through if you don’t give me what I want.”

Runi looks up at Myr. A silver tear is running down his pale face.


	5. Chapter 5

When the Tiger’s Eye wears off, Runi feels terrible. Charna hammers on the door of the dungeon and screams at the guards to get him some water and bread which he forces him to eat until he vomits. After that he feels better and Charna says, “Tiger’s Eye wants out when it’s done. You just have to get it out.”

Runi nods, lying on the floor and looking up at him. He groans. “Everything hurts.

Charna sits down and hauls Runi’s head into his lap. Charna’s hands are bruised from banging on the cell door. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” says Runi weakly. “I wanted you to.”

“You didn’t. It was the drug.”

“How do whores take this?” Runi says. “How can it be worth it? It makes you feel so bad. And you can get fucked without it.”

“It can be worth it,” says Charna. “If you can get eight or ten men in a night. Tiger’s Eye’ll push you right through and you’ll have enough silver from that to sleep it off.”

Runi narrows his eyes. “How do you know that?”

“Not all of us were born in this palace, Runi.”

“I wasn’t born here,” Runi says, “I came here at 11 to be the Chancellor’s apprentice.”

“Oh really,” says Charna, stroking his hair. His voice is teasing. “And before that? How did you get to be apprentice to the Chancellor of Bow at 11?”

“I lived with my rich parents who bought me a very expensive education.”

Charna makes a soft sound. “Well, I, didn’t.”

“You were a merchant at Longsight.”

“I was a merchant’s _son_ at Longsight. My parents bought and sold….anything.”

“They sold you? They whored you?” Charna nods. “Oh. And then they sold you to me.” Runi swallows. “But you were only 15 when you came here. How old were you when…?”

“You don’t want to know that,” says Charna, still stroking his hair.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m better off here than I was there. Or, I was until three days ago.”

“I didn’t even realise. Your father seemed so nice. He reminded me of my own father. I was so young then. It was so long ago.”

“You were older then than I am now,” says Charna.

And he’s right. Runi was 19 when he became High Chancellor and finding Charna had been one of the first things he’d done. But if Charna was 15 then, he’d only be 18 now. 

And he might never see 19 at all.

*

Later than day they are both taken to bath house and Runi’s vomit is cleaned while they’re gone, and when they come back to their cell there is more food and clean blankets and all Runi wants to do is sleep. The evening in the state dining room keeps coming back in waves. It’s mortifying, but he remembers Myr’s face, so close to his, and he feels he heart twist at the memory of it, how that must have been for him, having Runi right there and being unable to help him, even talk to him reasonably. 

And he knows what happens next will be worse. In three days, it will be worse. He has to do something. He needs to make a plan.

He’s lying in Charna’s lap again. Charna’s body is warm and firm. Charna is very hard and defined and golden where Runi is mostly soft and pale and freckled. Charna has a tiny amount of pale gold fuzz on his chest. Runi’s is bare, but he wonders if Myr has any hair there. Perhaps a little pattern of silver hair on his pale chest. Runi squirms a little to think about it.

“You awake?” says Charna.

Runi opens his eyes and looks up. Charna’s eyes are bright green. “Yeah,” says Runi, “I’m thinking.”

Charna strokes Runi’s cheek. “What about? Are you thinking about how to save us.”

“No. Not exactly. I’m thinking about how we deal with this.”

“Oh,” says Charna. He sounds surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I have some ideas. Last night, Zagor said I was the constitutional expert. He said he couldn’t ask me about Utti because all I could do was beg to be fucked.” 

“I remember,” Charna says softly.

“And he was right. He was right about both of those things. I did want you to fuck me and I am an expert. If he had killed Verne, Utti would be the next in line, not you. But if he doesn’t kill Verne he can’t marry her unless he rids himself of you. I’m not sure why he’s let you live this long, even. Unless it is to torment me further when he kills you. But never mind why he’s done it. You’re here now and you’re alive and I think I can keep you that way.”

“How, if he wants to marry Verne?”

“There’s only one way without killing you, which is to declare the entire marriage illegitimate. “

“Can you do that?”

“Yes,” says Runi sounding a little excited, “because, you were not who the palace and court believed you to be.”

“Wasn’t I?”

“Charna, you were a whore.”

“Ah, yes.”

“And the Queen married a whore, which is not something anyone would have allowed in Bow for a second if it were known. That anyone would allow a whore to rise to be the ruler of our country, that I would.” Charna looks stricken, but Runi says. “No, it’s good. It’s a good thing. It means that you’re marriage is illegitimate. Which means you get to live.”

“But would he really bother with all of that? Proving the marriage was illegitimate, when he could just kill me. It’s easier.” 

“I’m not sure, but it’s a chance. And it’s the only one we have.”

Charna nods. “And what about you. What can we do about what’s going to happen to you?

“The way I see it, Myr and I are in one of two situations. Either Myr is telling the truth when he says he can’t create Zagor’s army or he is lying and he can, but he doesn’t want to do it and is stalling.”

“Right,” says Charna sounding unsure. “Is that important?”

“Yes, because, if it’s the first one, the army will never happen and we have to work out what that means, and if it is the second we have to work out when Myr will give in and do it.

“Runi,” says Charna cautiously, “I don’t think it’s the second one. I was very close to Myr last night and…”

“I know exactly how close to him you were,” says Runi slyly. “About the length of my spine.”

“He didn’t look like someone who was holding out, he looked desperate. He looked like someone who was ready to do anything to protect you, but there was nothing he could do.”

“I agree. That’s the most likely. And that means I’m going to get raped every three days, doesn’t it? But for how long? How long will Zagor keep it up when nothing is happening? He’s not going to want to give up, that would be like admitting being wrong. So really, what I need to know is how long before he decides to simply punish Myr by killing me.”

He hears Charna take a quick stiff breath. “What good does it do, knowing that?”

“Because the longer we have the better. Because it’s Myr and me, and if we have some time, I believe, one of us will come up with a plan.”

*

The next morning Zem opens the door of the cell. He’s flanked by Zagor’s guards, as usual, and several of them walk into the tiny space. Charna and Runi are each handed a stack of clothes. Runi looks at them. His allotment contains a clean shirt and breeches, but also his robes of state, his chain. 

“What’s this?” says Charna, whose pile includes his gold jacket and his gold crown.

“Council meeting,” says Zem. “Get dressed.”

*

The council chamber is empty when Runi and Charna are led inside. Zem directs the guards to lead them each to their usual seats. Runi at the head of the long, familiar table. Zem sits in his own seat and the guards stand quietly against the wall.

They sit like that for a while, staring a each other, wide-eyed, but it’s only a couple of moments before Zagor appears, with more guards and Verna and Myr. 

As soon as he crosses the threshold and see him, Myr races to Runi and drops into a crouch beside his chair. He takes hold of Runi’s hands and kisses his fingertips. “Runi, oh god.” He looks paler than ever. His skin seems to be drawn tight over his face and his eyes are the dullest grey Runi has ever seen them.“Runi,” he says, breathless with emotion. “Are you okay?” He puts one of his hands on Runi’s jaw and turns his head, as if he’s inspecting him.

“Enough of that,” barks out Zagor. “Take your seat, Lord of Magic or I promise you, he won’t be.” He grinds out that last part. It’s a real threat. Everyone in the room feels it.

Myr stands up carefully and obeys, but he lets the back of his hand trail across Runi’s face and it feels good.

As Myr walks around the table, Charna says, “He’s fine. I made him vomit.”

Without looking at Charna, Myr says, “Thank you.” Runi can feel the pain in that. Myr can’t protect him. He’s having to rely on the protection of others and he hates it.

Lena comes into the room last, she sits where Moira used to sit and as she does so, Runi realises Moira is almost certainly dead.

Zagor claps his hands. He doesn’t have a seat. He’s circling, his leather armour creaking. “Right, now, Chancellor, you usually lead these meetings, don’t you. What do you have to report?”

Runi looks at Zagor. “I’ve been in the dungeon, Lord Zagor. If you want me to manage the country’s finances I will need access to my office.”

“I see. Well let me give the update instead. I have no space at this table. I don’t think that is really seemly, so this afternoon I will be executing Prince Charna.”

“No!” Verne says is a kind of shriek that sounds like an animal as much as it does a human. Charna, next to her, touches her shoulder, but she looks half broken. Like whatever’s happened to her so far has ruined part of her forever.

“Actually, you don’t have to do that,” says Runi.

“Sadly, if I am to marry the queen I do,” Zagor says, as if Runi is being very stupid. “Bow does not allow, even a queen, to have two husbands.”

“Maybe so, but Verne’s marriage to Charna isn’t legitimate.”

Zagor stops walking. “Really?”

Runi nods. “Charna’s a whore. He _was_ a whore. In Longsight. His parents did not declare this to me when I selected him for queen’s consort. Meaning the whole thing is illegal under Bow law. You don’t have to kill Charna, because he’s not married to Verne. He’s not really Queen’s consort.” When Runi finishes this he feels oddly exhausted. The collar he’s wearing is so heavy. Along with his chain of office, he feels like his head is being dragged down onto the table.

“You have been busy,” says Zagor, indulgently. “But really, that sounds messy. Easier to kill him.”

“It would be a mistake. He’s a valuable member of the council. He’s a skilled diplomat. I would never have been able to secure trade agreements with Caen and Calisto without him.” 

Zagor is leaning over the table between Myr and Zem, facing Runi, batting his words back to him. “Those agreements to sell magic are no longer necessary. It’s ridiculous to trade our greatest resource to our enemies.” 

“Magic’s not the only thing we have to trade. You control all of the Northern Lands. There are tin, lead and gold mines in Melkhor and Karass. If I could work with Runi we could secure a valuable…”

“Alright, enough,” Zagor holds up a hand to stop him. “I can see you have a lot to say about these things. I would like to see what you can do with those mines. Let us discuss that later. But I do not think you need your prince for that. Even if you have grown very fond of him.”

“I can look into that if you wish, my lord,” says Runi. “And I think it would be needless to kill the Prince, that is all.” He looks at Charna. Has he done enough? He doesn’t know. He’s done all he can.

“Interesting points, says Zagor. “Tell me, Chancellor, have you ever heard of the ruby of the Harem of Caen?”

“Of course I have. The Harem of Caen promises that any man whose desires cannot be met by the harem will be given a ruby the size of a swan’s egg. I believe there is one on display in the centre of the palace of pleasures. No one has ever claimed it.”

“I visited it once. Years ago. Can you guess what I asked the harem for?”

“What is this?” snaps Myr. The first time he’s spoken since Zagor ordered him to his seat. “My husband cares not what you asked to have wrapped around your dick, tyrant. Stop this,” he finishes, losing his patience in a way that is familiar to Runi.

Zagor’s voice however, is still smooth. “Would you like to answer my question in his stead, Lord of Magic?”

Myr’s voice is hard.“You want me to ask you? You want me to ask you what you asked the harem for?”

“I really do. It would thrill me to know that my sexual exploits intrigued you.”

Myr sighs. “Then tell me, Zagor, Tyrant of the North, what did you ask the harem of Caen for? What pleasure did you seek for your bed?”

“I asked for a god.”

“Oh.” Myr sounds as genuinely surprised as Runi has ever heard. “And did you win the ruby?”

“No.”

Myr sounds, less hard now, almost entertained. “You’re telling me there is a god who works as a whore in the harem of Caen?”

“I am telling you they are not lying when they say they can provide anything the heart can desire. Although now of course, I wish I had asked for a fairy. You think they have one? Perhaps they’d like one?”

“You really should stop listening to rumours,” Myr says simply. 

“Or perhaps they’d like a prince,” Zagor continues. “A prince to satisfy those who desire one.” He turns, smiling at Charna.

Verne’s eyes are still wild. Charna says. “I’m not a prince.”

“I’m sure they won’t quibble. A whore who became a prince, sounds like something Caen would prize. Do you think you can get us a good price, Chancellor?”

Runi can’t speak for a second. “You want me to arrange the sale of Charna to the Harem of Caen.”

“Yes. Or Zem will arrange his execution. Your choice. I will allow you use of your rooms for the afternoon.”

*

It’s not a difficult job. The Harem always need new slaves. All Runi needs to do is send a letter ahead via a fast rider and arrange passage to Caen’s port city of Disran for Charna and two of Zagor’s soldiers. He does it all with a heart like lead. Is it better than death? He doesn’t know for sure.

But he does think, does cling to the idea that he and Myr will find a way out of this. And then, the first thing he will do is buy Charna back from The Harem.

Runi is not taken back to the cells. A guard is put on his door. He sleeps alone in his own bed. The next day, three men bring him piles of paper relating to the mines in Melkhor and Karass. 

The day after that, Zagor comes to his door and says, “I’m afraid to tell your husband has failed, once again, in his duties.”

“Oh,” says Runi.

Runi is instructed to remove all his clothes except his shirt. His wrists are shackled behind him by a guard and a chain is attached to the collar he wears. When Zagor tugs at the chain, he says, “Where are we going?”

“Exactly where you want to go,” says Zagor.

With the two guards following, Runi is lead out of the castle and across the square to Myr’s tower. There are another pair of guards at the entrance, who salute Zagor. Zagor leads Runi inside and up the stairs. Up and up. Runi had forgotten what a climb it was to Myr’s rooms. When they reach Myr’s door another stationed guard opens the door for Zagor and Runi, saying, “My lord.”

Myr is at his desk. The sight is so familiar it’s painful. He looks so tired. When he sees Runi, he sits straighter and says, in a low and hopeless sound whine. “No. Not yet. No.” He looks at Zagor with dull eyes. “I need more time.”

“It’s been three days. Do you have anything to show me?”

Myr swallows and shakes his head.

Zagor turns to the two guards. “Put him on the bed. Face up. Rope him in place.”

It is done. Runi is shoved down on the bed and roped in place. His shirts rides up a little and his dick is exposed, and he’d care, but it seems trivial under the circumstances. His legs are spread wide, each ankle roped to a corner of the bed. He’s spread so wide the stretch hurts a little. His hole is right there, he can’t shield or protect himself. And the worst thing is this is exactly how he’d always dreamed Myr would take him. Roped like this. Spread and helpless. When he thinks of Myr his hips shift a little. He can’t help it. It’s his fantasy coming true as a nightmare.

Zagor takes a chair and moves it across the room, letting the legs drag so they scrape and squeal. He places it by the head of the bed, right beside Runi’s head. 

“But him here,” he says to the guards, pointing to the chair. 

Myr is brought over by one of the guards. He doesn’t resist. Runi thinks he looks so thin and weak. 

He’s placed in the chair and the guard stands beside him, holding his shoulders, holding him in place, although it seems impossible he could do anything.

Zagor removes his breeches. “You are to do it yourself?” says Myr. He sounds disgusted. But not angry or surprised. 

“What can I say,” Zagor smiles, climbing onto the bed between Runi’s spread legs. “I can’t resist.”

Zagor crawls up so he’s as close to Runi’s centre as he can get. He reaches out and runs a finger over Runi’s hole. Runi flinches, but Zagor places his other hand on Runi’s thigh and coos, “Shush, shush.” I’m good at this. I know what to do.” He looks at Myr. “You haven’t fucked him yet, have you,” he says as the tip of his finger slips inside Runi. It has something with it to ease it. A little grease or something. Runi didn’t see. 

“No,” says Myr. Just that word. It sounds as if Myr is doing everything he can to keep all emotions out of his voice.

“He’s very hot here. Very tight,” Zagor says sliding deeper. “Were you waiting for your wedding night?”

“Yes.”

“And you would have taken him to bed. Here to this bed?”

“Yes.” Myr’s voice slips, cracks. 

Zagor slips another finger easily into Runi. It’s a lot. He feels like Zagor’s fingers are bigger than other people’s, like two of his fingers is more than most dicks would be. “Would you have tied him down, like this?” says Zagor. “He seems like he needs this kind of treatment.”

“Yes,” says Myr and now he sounds pitiful. Broken.

Zagor removes his fingers, repositions and slides his dick into Runi. Runi moans and rolls his head away. He looks up at Myr.

Myr says, “It’s me, Runi. Think of me. I’m right here. Look at me.”

Put as Zagor slips back and slides in again, he grabs hold of Runi’s chin and brings his gaze back so their eyes meet. “No. No you don’t. You will look at me just at me. You will not forget this is me inside you. Now, tell him, tell him you want me to stop.”

Runi doesn’t say anything. Zagor slaps him. Hard.

Runi yells and says. “I want you to stop. I want him to stop.”

Zagor thrusts again and and grunts with pleasure. “Good. Keep going,” he growls out.

“Please stop,” Runi says, meaning it is as Zagor starts to go harder. He thrashes in the ropes. Pulling where his wrists are held.

Runi feels tears on his own cheeks. He’s crying and writhing and he thinks it can’t get worse when Zagor reaches between their bodies and curls his fist around Runi’s dick. “No, no,” Runi screams. “Please no.”

“If you want this to fucking stop,” Zagor snarls, sweating now, red-faced and panting, “tell your husband what he needs to do.”

Runi can feel pleasure building as Zagor jerks his dick. It’s disgusting. “I can’t, he can’t. Oh, oh god. Please don’t.”

“Beg him,” Zagor pants. “Beg him to do it.”

“Myr?” Runi whines out, turning his head to look at him.

“Runi,” Myr says “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Zagor jerks Runi dick harder. And it feels so good in the nastiest way. Zagor is going to rip an orgasm out of him there’s nothing he can do. “Myr,” he says. “Myr, help me. Please make it stop, please.”

“That’s it. That’s right,” Zagor growls, fucking into Runi harder, close to his edge. 

Runi feels a sudden sick feeling over take him as he peaks in Zagor’s hand, seed erupting sticky between their bodies as he cries out, “No, no.”

Zagor grunts and comes too, thrusting so hard Runi screams. 

And as the scream ends he hears Myr saying again, “I’m sorry, Runi. I’m so sorry. I can’t. I can’t.”

Dazed, he looks over at where the solider is holding Myr. But the solider is holding nothing. The chair is empty. Despite Zagor’s threats of what would happen to Runi, despite his claims not to be of the fey, Myr has vanished like smoke. 

Zagor roars in rage.


	6. Chapter 6

Runi doesn’t think he has ever seen another human being so angry. Zagor leaps from the bed, still half naked and grabs the chair Myr was sitting on, whirls it over his head and throws it across the room, where it smashes against the stone wall. “Where is he?” Zagor bellows, as he storms over to Myr’s desk, swipes everything from it onto the floor and then, with a yell, kicks the empty desk right through the window. The glass smashes. Runi tries to curl up and protect himself, but he’s still spread by the ropes and can’t move. 

Zagor marches back over to the bed and climbs up on it, straddling Runi. “Where is he?” he shouts.

Runi gets as far as, “I don’t…” Before Zagor punches him in the face. Runi thinks for a short moment that he didn’t know anyone could punch that hard, before losing consciousness. 

*

He wakes in the dungeon. In his old cell. He’s lying on the floor in his tattered, dirty shirt. Zem is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, staring at him. 

Runi struggles to sit up and when he does, Zem says, “He’s going to fucking burn you at dawn, you know.”

“I thought he would,” says Runi.

“He’s in a meeting with that witch he brought with him, Lena, and he’s trying to work out the most painful way of doing it.”

“Great,” says Runi. His head hurts, his arse hurts. 

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” says Zem.

“What, turning traitor and selling us all out to a tyrant? Did you think it would be more exciting?” Runi snaps.

“Don’t you even wonder,” says Zem, “why I did it? Why I took his side?”

“I assumed it was because you were a piece of fucking shit,” says Runi, his voice is slow, even a little slurred. He leans back, resting his head carefully against the wall.

“See that’s typical. You’re so fucking arrogant. It never occurred to you, did it, that I did what I thought was right?”

“What you thought was right was for me to be raped twice and executed, Charna to be sold as a sex slave, Verne to be married to a tyrant, who has obviously already raped her too, for Moria to be killed and Myr to… do whatever he’s done? You must explain your moral code to me, traitor.”

“I said, I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“Really,” says Runi. But he’s softening. “You should have come to me. As soon as he approached you about betraying us, you should have spoken to me.”

“When? When you were sucking my dick for your boyfriend’s enjoyment?”

Runi looks at him still soft. “You saw what that did. It worked. He needs it.”

“You would never have listened to me. You don’t worry about Calisto. You just want their money. You _trade_ with them. You think that’s good. You, the council, you all think that they’re no threat to us, that they’ll never take Caen, that they’ll never come here and take us. But they will. They’ve conquered hundreds of lands. We’ll fall to them. And when we do…. It will be bad for all of us. Someone like you, you are married to man. To a man who everyone says is of the fey. They’d have you killed.”

“Zagor is having me killed.”

“Only because Myr wouldn’t help him. He had to. He doesn’t want to. He just knows we are only chance is to use magic to protect ourselves against them. And Myr’s the only one who can do that.”

“Zem, Calisto aren’t going to invade Caen. They hate magic. They won’t come here. Can you imagine the Calisto empire having a border with Perpetua?”

“Yes, I can. One with a fucking iron wall all along it.”

“Even if he was right,” says Runi. “It doesn’t matter. What he wanted, the army, Myr can’t do that. He doesn’t have the power to do it.”

“How do you know? Did you know he had the power to make himself vanish?”

“No.”

“He is half fey.”

“He’s not. He’s human. That’s just a rumour.”

“Can humans make themselves vanish?”

“All magic is fey magic. Some humans can do it. We know this.”

“The simplest parts of it. Not like what he can do. Putting magic in brass balls, charging wards, those things he used you for. That’s not human. And his father was known for studying the fey, was allowed to pass into Perpetua, spent time with the fey and worked with them until they killed him. Are we meant to think it’s ridiculous that he would lie with them.”

“No fey would lie with a human.”

“Surely _you_ know that’s not true. You’re just fooling yourself, that Myr’s not a fey and that Calisto will never take Caen. Because when it does, the Northern Lands will fall right after it. They’ll probably even take Ka. And we’ll all be no better than slaves when they do it and magic is our only chance to fight them.”

“They won’t take Caen,” says Runi again, but he’s unsure this time. That Calisto would never take Caen is a belief he’s always held. But is it even true. What makes him so sure?

“Calisto sends raiding parties into Caen all the time. They take slaves and burn villages. They sometimes do it in Galash and Melkhor too. That how Zagor took Galash, he said he’d protect them.”

“And has he?” says Runi.

“Has he what?”

“Has he protected them. Have the Calisto raiders stopped?”

Zagor stares at him. Runi can guess the answer. And before either of them can say anything else there’s a loud knock on the door of the cell and a voice says, “Captain Zem, it’s time.”

*

It’s still dark outside. The square is lit by torches in the dark grey of dawn. Runi has seen executions in this square. But not many. He thinks grimly that the last one he can remember was the hanging of a raper. 

He’s never seen a stake or a pyre before. It’s a terrifying sight, but he doesn’t resist. Doesn’t see the point. He’s led up onto the platform, chained to the stake and the pyre is adjusted, brought closer and piled higher around his bare legs and feet.

Zagor is holding a torch. His face is lit eerily by the dancing orange light. “Do you having anything to say, traitor?”

Runi just shakes his head. 

Zagor says, “This will hurt you, but more than that, it will hurt him. Your Lord of Magic. Your pain will be done, but when he finds out what I did to you, how I killed you, he will be in pain every day he lives. I cannot wait to find out how he suffers.” Zagor lowers his torch to the pyre. 

Runi looks in the direction of the glass mountains of Perpetua. The first licks of sun start them glittering. Below him the fire ignites, the small pieces of kindling first, crackling and popping.

As it starts, the iron collar around Runi’s neck makes a cracking sound too. Cracking as it breaks into half and falls away into the fire. Runi’s heart leaps. 

It’s working. It is actually going to work. 

*

_2 Days Earlier_

_The first night Runi is allowed to sleep in his own room, he finds out the truth about Myr, about his husband. He finds out that the rumours about him are, despite his furious denials, true._

_Because Myr appears in his bed._

_Next to him in his bed, on top of the blankets he is curled under, long legs stretched out in those white leather breeches, ankles crossed. And, Runi, in response to this, dives right under his blankets and then says, carefully, “Is that really you?”_

_Myr peels the blanket from Runi’s head, “It’s me.”_

_The next words out of Runi’s mouth are, “Kiss me, if it’s you, please kiss me.”_

_Myr lowers his head in what might have been intended to be a soft, chaste kiss. but Runi fists his hands in Myr’s silver hair and pulls him close, deep, lets his mouth fall open and is practically sobbing, “Myr, Myr,” into Myr’s mouth before Myr can peel him off and pull away._

_“Runi,” says Myr, “are you drugged again?”_

_“No. I just…, is this a dream?”_

_“No. And we really don’t have much time before the guards realise I’m gone.”_

_“How are you here?”_

_Myr takes a breath. “Runi, the things Zagor wants from me, I really can’t do them. But I can do some things, it turns out. I can move myself, move my own body, a little, using transference. But not always. I think I can only do this because… no, wait, I’ll get to that. Runi, I, my mother… I should have told you this before we married but, my mother…” Myr tails off._

_“Is fey. Your father Goren laid with a fey and the result was you.”_

_“Yes. Did you know?”_

_Runi shrugs. “Not really. But, the rumour, everyone suspects it. Does it matter?” Runi leans close to Myr and rests his head on his shoulder. Everything, just the smell of him, it’s so good._

_“It might matter now. It might be the only way out. Runi, my mother, she isn’t just any fey creature. She’s a queen. She’s called Night’s Mistress, Queen of Tears, Queen of a Thousand Years.”_

_“She sounds nice,” says Runi._

_“She’s not,” says Myr. “And she doesn’t care for me at all. I was not, it wasn’t meant to happen. I don’t think she or my father thought it could happen. And when she quickened and I was born, she made him take me away. She didn’t let him return to Perpetua again. That was why the wards were never finished. That was me. She wouldn’t let him back because of me. Until the day she did, so she could kill him.”_

_“She doesn’t sound like someone who will help us.”_

_“She’s all we’ve got. And there may be a way I can persuade her. Runi, I can escape. I can. I can transport myself out of the castle. But I can’t help you. I can’t get you out. Especially with that collar on, but even without it, I doubt I would be able to do it. But she can. She can bring you to Perpetua. She used to do it to my father. I know she can do it.”_

_“What about the collar?”_

_“It’s human made. She’d laugh at it.”_

_“So you could go there and ask her to bring me?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Do it,” says Runi, suddenly bright with excitement. “Do it now.”_

_“There’s more. I… It takes a lot of energy to do this. Human transference…And I…There’s a reason I’ve only just found I can do it.” Myr swallows. “But you will think me a monster.”_

_“What,” says Runi, “what is it?”_

_“I never was able to this before. I never had the kind of magical energy needed until, until… Oh Runi, I cannot tell you.” Myr looks at Runi, really looks at him._

_“Oh,” says Runi, as he realises. “It gave you the energy when Charna raped me?”_

_“Yes,” says Myr. I’ve never felt anything like it. When you said you wanted me to watch him flog you, it burned through me like… I’ve never felt anything like it. I’m trying to hide it. But I’m so strong now. So strong with magic. I don’t have enough to get all the way back to Perpetua from that alone yet, but…”_

_“But something else will happen to me the day after tomorrow.”_

_“Yes,” says Myr. “And he will make me watch it.”_

_Runi doesn’t speak. He stares at Myr. “He thinks he’s punishing you. He’s helping you.”_

_Myr nods. “It is the fey in me. Fey magic is, it is powered by cruelty and sex, preferably both. I think, the reason I was attracted to you at first, why I wanted you, was that part of me, the fey part of me, knew you would allow, encourage even, my most base appetites.” But is voice drops then. His next words are low and sad. “But that’s where my magic comes from, Runi. That cruelty. My father, when he wasn’t allowed to return to Perpetua, he could only get magical energy from me. He would beat me and make me cry. So I am sorry to tell you that one of the things you enjoy most about me is my non-human savagery.”_

_Runi rolls over in Myr’s arms and looks up at him, chin on his chest. “Humans are cruel too,” he says. “Look at Zagor. He’s human. For all you know this could all be because of your human side. And you they have red houses in the Harem of Caen, for humans who like to be cruel.”_

_“Runi,” says Myr, “I’ve just told you in order to escape I’m going to have to watch you raped again.”_

_“You have to do that anyway,” says Runi, as if that’s simple. “Can you stay, now? It might make it easier if I could lie with you tonight.”_

_“If the guards check and find me gone, Zagor will know I used magic and he’ll take it out on you.”_

_“Oh,” says Runi. “Oh, you’re right.”_

_“Although,” Myr is smiling a little now. “It takes a lot of energy to transfer myself from the tower to here. I actually don’t think I have enough to get back.”_

_“Myr!” Runi says, horrified. “How could you do something so stupid. How could you transfer yourself here with no way to get back?”_

_Myr smiles a little more. “Because I knew if there was one place I could go without enough power to get back, it was the place that gives me all the power I could ever need.”_

__Oh._ “Oh!” It hits Runi in a rush. A terrible rush where he doesn’t know if Myr is manipulating him or joking with him or both, but he doesn’t care. He is overwhelmed with desire. He slides up Myr’s body, and puts his face close to his, so close they are almost lip to lip. His dick is hard, grinding into Myr’s belly. “So you have to use me,” he whispers, biting down on his bottom lip._

_“I do,” Myr says sounding just as aroused as he is._

_“Will you speak to me?”_

_“Will I speak to you?”_

_“The way you used to. Tell me what to do. What you need from me.”_

_“Ah, I see. Of course. Chancellor, onto you back please. I don’t need to hear from you.”_

_Runi rolls off Myr and lies back._

_“And put your hands above your head please. Out of my way and keep them there.”_

_Runi obeys with a desperate sigh. It feels so good to lie like this under Myr._

_Myr straddles him. There’s something delicious about that. The way his leather breeches stretch tight over his thighs and tent up a little over his dick. He opens Runi’s shirt and touches Runi’s chest, Sliding both hands up from his waist to his shoulders, skating over his nipples just roughly enough that he gasps._

_Myr slips one hand back down rubs a thumb over Runi’s nipple. “Do you want me to hurt you?” he says._

_“Yes.” Runi gasps out. “Please, yes. I love the way you look when I’m in pain for you.”_

_“Oh, really,” Myr says as he keeps on circling. Runi arches and moans. “You know, I could probably get a lot of magical energy just from teasing you,” he says._

_“Please don’t,” Runi says, breathless._

_Myr pinches his nipple hard and Runi bucks up as the sensation zips through him, hard and intense. “Myr,” he cries out. “Yes. More. Please, more.”_

_Myr drops down onto Runi and seals their mouths together in a messy, deep kiss. He keeps his hand between their chests and finds Runi’s other nipple, pinching it hard so Runi screams into his mouth._

_When that happens, Myr breaks the kiss and arches back. Runi opens his eyes to look at him. He’s glittering. His own eyes sparkling like the glass mountains. “Runi,” he gasps, “it feels so good. You make me feel so good.”_

_“Do it again,” Runi pants out. “Hurt me again. I want to see you look like that again.”_

_“No,” says Myr, “Not that again. I can’t. Too much. I want you to touch yourself. Make yourself come. I want to watch you. I need it.”_

_Runi nods, grabbing hold of his dick. It’s so hard and wet he sobs at the touch of his own hand. “Myr,” he says, “Myr, Myr.”_

_“Do it, Runi. I know you’re close.” Myr is staring at Runi and all it takes is two or three strokes and Runi comes, with a long cry of pleasure._

_“Runi,” Myr says. “This is perfect. I know this will work now. I know. I know. Please trust me.” And he vanishes as easily and silently as he appeared_

*

A moment after Runi’s collar breaks, the pyre is gone. The stake is gone. Runi feels the heat of the fire on him one moment and gone the next and everything around him is replaced my air, like he’s flying, like the wind is high, surrounding him and fierce. 

When the wind is gone. He doesn’t know where he is. He tries to open his eyes. But he can’t see anything. Everything is dark. 

Finger’s touch his face. Cool, smooth fingers. “Myr?”

“Runi, are you unhurt?”

“Myr, I can’t see.”

“I know. It’s a blindfold. Don’t touch it. There have been some… problems.”


	7. Chapter 7

“What is it?” says Runi, shaking his head from side to side. He desperately wants to touch the thing covering his eyes. He feels instantly, horribly vulnerable. “What problems.”

“I can deal with it,” says Myr. His fingers have left Runi’s face and he’s just a floating voice. A silken purr of a voice. 

“Am I blind?”

“No, but, you would be if not for that… it’s the light here, the way it bounces off the glass mountains. It’s so bright. You’d lose your sight in a few minutes.” He pauses. “It’s deliberate.”

“It’s deliberate that humans go blind here?”

“Yes. After what happened with my father, with me, they needed more of a deterrent. So they…,”

“They purposely made it so the sun blinds humans here?” Runi says with a feeling of fear and awe. “What’s that like for you?”

“It’s bright,” says Myr. “It makes my head ache a little, but it won’t blind me. I don’t think.” He touches Runi again and this time Runi grabs his wrist and keeps his hand in place. Myr laughs a little.

“Where am I?”

“We’re in my mother’s palace. We’re in a bedroom. Every room here is very bright and very cold.”

“It is cold. But I don’t feel cold,” says Runi, which is true. The air around him is cold, he can feel the chill as he breathes. But it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. His body feels fine.

“Yes,” says Myr. “It is strange, isn’t it? I don’t really understand how it works.”

“Can I take the blindfold off at night?” says Runi. “When the sun is down?”

“Yes,” says Myr. “Yes you can.” 

Relieved, Runi takes a slow breath of the icy air. He is lying on a bed. the bed feels cool and smooth. He has a covering over him, something else smooth and cool. Under it, he’s naked. “Where are my clothes?” says Runi.

“They were damaged. By fire. He was burning you.”

“Yes,” says Runi.

“Were you hurt?”

Runi thinks. Everything is a blur. “I’m not sure,” he says. “It was… a lot.”

Myr’s fingers on his cheek. Myr’s laugh. And then Myr’s lips are on his and it’s a soft sweet kiss. Runi wants to moan into it, buck his hips up, urge Myr to swing one of his long legs over him, grind down on him until he’s begging. But he doesn’t. He just let’s Myr kiss him. 

“Myr,” Runi says, breathless when Myr breaks the kiss. “I want to see you.”

“I know,” Myr whispers. “Touch me instead.”

Runi reaches up with both hands and runs his hands over Myr’s face, his smooth skin, his sharp cheekbones, his nose, when he reaches Myr’s mouth, Myr kisses his fingers. 

“If your mother still feels badly enough about you that she wants any human who comes near her to go blind, how did you get her to save me?” Runi says thoughtfully, hands in Myr’s hair now.

“It’s an odd thing,” says Myr. “I expected to fail. I expected to come here and beseech her and fail and have to return to Bow and beg for your life, but when she saw me she…” Myr pauses. “Runi, when I was born I looked exactly like some human babies, plump and pink. My mother was disgusted. It was to her as if she had birthed a monster, some creature, an animal. The whole thing was a deep shame to her. But when she saw me yesterday. I do not look unlike them now. I am only a little larger and my skin is only a little different and I have the look of them now.”

“You grew up to look more fey.”

“Partly,” says Myr. “But it’s mostly you. I look like I have their power. I look like someone who has been cruel, who has pulled power out of something painful. Which I have. And to them, that’s a good thing.”

“So we’re okay. It’s all okay. She accepted you and saved me. Aren’t there problems? You said.”

“Yes. There are problems. Big ones. When my mother saw me, she was delighted, but when I told her what I needed her to do, well, that involved revealing that I was married to a human and that, to her, is not at all fitting. First, she insisted I ought to leave you to die. Because now she feels I am her worthy son she does not like the idea that I am married to someone like you, to them it is as if I have just announced I am married to an animal. To a dog or a cow.”

“Oh,” says Runi, unsure what else to say. 

Myr drops a kiss on the top of her head. “Sorry. I told her you were very special for a human and that was what convinced her to do the spell that brought you here. But she didn’t save you, she brought you here for assessment. She wants to see if it’s true, if you’re worthy.”

“Oh,” says Runi. “And if I’m not?”

Myr’s voice turns harder, “I think she’ll send you back to Zagor.”

“I see,” says Runi. “Problems.”

“But, in truth, you are very special for a human. So I am hoping she will see that.”

“I can work with numbers very fast.”

Myr laughs. “I don’t think that will impress her. Rather, your other qualities.”

“What other qualities,” says Runi, genuinely unsure what skills he might possess other than the one he had been praised for since childhood.

“Marriage here is… we have something rather like the Bow tradition of the power of the pairing. And here it is very important that we pair up as opposites.”

“Like men and women,” Runi interrupts, concerned. “Would our union be considered sinful here, like it would in Calisto.”

“No. Not that. We pair, rather as we have, with complementary satisfactions.”

“Myr, I’m not sure…” Runi begins, although he is starting to get an idea. 

“As a, as if a master and a slave.” 

“Oh,” says Runi. “But that’s is okay, isn’t it? We can do that. I am your slave.” He finishes bashful, feeling odd to say that aloud, although he knows it true. And saying it has also made him feel a burn of desire.

Myr starts to say something, begins, “I…” but before he can finish there is a sound like a large door opening, but no squeak, just a whoosh, a glide of a perfect hinge. “Mother.” Runi feels the bed move as Myr stands up.

And there’s high sweet, musical voice saying, “Ah, now, you are the human my son has married.” 

Runi’s vulnerability comes in an unpleasant wash. He is naked. He cannot see. He finds himself holding the smooth blanket that covers his lower body and manages, “Yes your majesty.”

“You are _very_ human, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so, your majesty.”

“So thick and pink. Does that bring you pleasure, son of tears?”

“I find him very beautiful, mother,” says Myr harshly.

“That is quite disgusting,” says the queen. “Human, I cannot image what my son could see in something like you. Perhaps I will understand if I see your obedience. Pay deference to him.”

Runi tries to imagine what she might mean, what could be the best way to do that. When Myr says in a low voice. “I’m standing right beside the bed.”

“Do not instruct it, son of tears. It should be trained by now.”

“Mother, he can’t see. I’m just telling him where I am so he can obey you.”

When Myr says that, it seems obvious, to Runi, what he ought to do. He tries not think about the fact he is naked and blind as he slips out of the bed and onto the floor. Myr’s hand is on his arm and he quickly finds Myr’s legs, Myr’s feet and kneels there, putting his head right down onto the ground before him. He places a kiss on the floor between Myr’s boots. 

He’s so naked and vulnerable like this. He doesn’t know who is in the room, who is looking upon him as he kneels before Myr. His arse is up in the air, his hole is probably on display. He feels a deep dark crumbling of shame inside him. It’s awful and he feels his dick stiffen at it.

“That does have a little charm,” says the queen, idly. “It appears to arouse it too.”

“Yes,” says Myr. “He likes it.”

“Aren’t you going to crown it?” says the queen. “You can’t just leave it like that.”

“He doesn’t need it,” says Myr.

“Ah, I am not so sure it does not. Indulge me,” says the queen.

Runi feels a shift then and a soft pressure as Myr lifts one foot and places it very gently on top of Runi’s head. When he feels that, the sole of Myr’s boot, Runi moans against the cold hard floor. His cock stirs further, growing fully hard.

“See there,” says the queen with a note of triumph. “It likes it . You’re so cruel to deny it. Human, do you like it when my son treats you so?”

Runi feels hot despite his nakedness and the cold room. He’s so overwhelmed by vulnerability he can’t think. He feels so good. “Yes,” he breathes out. “Yes, your majesty.”

“See,” says the queen. “If this thing is your beloved and as unique as you claim you ought to treat it roughly as it clearly desires.”

“I am trying, mother,” says Myr.

“Are you?” she sounds unconvinced. “Have you fucked it yet?”

“Not yet. Our wedding day was interrupted as I explained.”

“You should hurry up about it,” the queen clips. “That thing clearly needs to be fucked regularly and hard.”

Runi can’t help it. He moans again into the cold floor.

There is a jingling sound and then the queen says, “It is interesting. Bring it to dinner. I will finish my assessment there.”

The swish of the door again, and the room is quiet. 

Myr removes his foot and helps Runi back onto the bed. “That brought you pleasure?” Myr says, sounding very pleased about it.

“Yes,” says Runi sweetly. “Kneeling before you has always brought me pleasure and always will.”

“Ah,” Myr touches his chin, “that’s a good sign. If we have to endure a dinner with my mother and her court before she decides you are worth saving, there will be need of a lot of showing deference to me.”

“So there’s more to this dinner than dinner?”

“Oh yes,” says Myr, sitting back down on the bed. Runi snuggles close. He presses his dick against Myr’s hip and Myr doesn’t tell him not to. It feels so good. “You will be expected to sit on the floor at my feet.”

Runi grinds onto Myr a little. “That sounds fine.”

“Does it? And you will have to eat from my hand.”

“Also fine,” says Runi, pressing harder.

Myr laughs. “Perhaps we should call this our honeymoon.”

“I’d prefer not to be blindfolded on our honeymoon.”

“And there will be rules. You will not be allowed to speak unless I ask you a question, and you will not be allowed to look at me, you have to keep your gaze down, unless I lift your chin.”

Runi sighs. “I would do exactly as you wanted,” he says.

There’s another sound, the door opens and someone else comes in. Myr gets up quickly from the bed and there’s a brief conversation that Runi feels strangely exposed for, naked and hard on the bed with a stranger in the room. But when Myr comes back, he pets Runi’s face and sits down, snuggling close again and says, “It was just one of my mother’s pages. He brought the clothing you are to wear tonight.”

“Oh. I thought I would be staying like this.”

“You’ll be almost naked. It’s not exactly a modest garment,” says Myr.

“Tell me,” Runi presses in again, his voice breathy. 

“Tell you about the humiliating outfit you’re going to have to wear while you kneel at my feet in front of a large number of fey?”

“Yes,” Runi breathes, “please.”

“I’m sorry to say there is a collar. I expect you’re sick of them.”

“A little,” says Runi, “but I’d wear a collar that says I am yours. Happily. If you put it on me and it made me belong to you.”

“It is very much a collar that means that. It is also far nicer than that thing Lena used. It’s fey made, silver, very light and beautiful. There’s a belt too, with chains for your wrists, to hold them behind you.” Runi hears it then, the catches in Myr’s voice. He’s getting breathy too. There’s a hip cloth, just a small white one and there are these.” He presses something into Runi’s hand. It just feels like a short length of light chain. “they’re nipple clamps,” Myr says simply. They’re decorative, but they hurt, I would… I would very much like to see you wear them.”

“Now?”

“Yes. If I may.”

Runi says, “Myr, don’t ask me if you can. You can do anything you want to me. If you want to hurt me, hurt me. It’s not up to me.”

Runi hear’s Myr swallow. He leans down and kisses Runi, pushing him over onto his back. Then he’s up and on top of him, cool hands running down Runi’s chest. “It will hurt,” he says again.

Runi doesn’t reply. He just lies there, under Myr, hands up by his head and waits.

Myr snaps the first clamp in place. It’s a sharp little jolt of pain. An angry, sparkling fizz that races right through him. Runi cries out at the vicious snap of it and feels Myr’s hips jerk in response. That makes Runi moan, grinding up against Myr. “Again,” Runi breathes as the pain from the first clamp fades down to a manageable ache. “Please, more.”

Myr snaps down the second clamp and whole thing replays, the spark, the cry, Myr’s obvious enjoyment of Runi’s pain.

“Is there,” Runi pants, writhing a little under Myr. “Is there anything else?”

“One more thing,” says Myr. He leans over and puts something heavy in Runi’s hand. 

Runi feels it. It’s a metal object. He has no idea what it is. It has a heavy bulb at one end, a narrow part and then a wider flat piece. “It feels like a metal mushroom,” says Runi.

Myr laughs. It looks a little like one. “It goes inside you. The heavy part sits inside your body. In you hole.”

“Oh,” says Runi. He can feel his cheeks colouring. “The whole time? That sounds, very humiliating.”

“That’s the idea,” says Myr. “I do like the idea of you wearing something like this, being made to feel that way, but I dislike the thought of placing this inside you so soon after he was…”

“Oh,” says Runi, thinking for a moment about Zagor, the brutal way Zagor fucked him, Myr watching. “Myr, I wouldn’t like the next thing inside me after Zagor to be this metal thing either.

“Quite,” says Myr.

“I’d like it to be you.”

“Me?” Myr sounds almost surprised. “Runi I…, I want that too, but, here? With your eyes covered?”

“It’s not the way I dreamed it would be, but you said this was my honeymoon. Please Myr. We’ve waited so long. I want it. Fuck me.”

Myr leans down, taking care not to crush Runi’s clamped tits and kisses him, “Really,” he breathes. “Because I would dearly love to take you like this. Blinded and in pain.”

“Yes,” Runi gasps, “And please, Myr, please, don’t be gentle at all. I want you to fuck me harder than he did.”

Runi hears a sigh of pleasure, followed by the sound of Myr’s breeches coming off and the next sensation is oiled fingers in him. Myr’s fingers are slender, there are two inside him quickly. Runi bucks down onto them and Myr snarls, “No, take what I give you,” and pulls the chain connecting the clamps. Pain zips through Runi again and he cries out. Myr makes a sound of pleasure and twists his fingers inside. Runi rolls and sobs, feeling everything, feeling so much.

When it comes, Myr’s dick slides into him in one long intense thrust. It feels perfect. Myr moves so he is over Runi. Hands twisted in Runi’s hair. Myr snarls by his ear. “You like it don’t you, Chancellor? You like the way I fuck you.”

“Yes,” Runi gasps. It’s so good. So intense and full and good. 

Myr snaps his hips fucking harder, “Say it,” he grinds out, “say it, say you like it.”

“I like it. I like it like this. I like the way you fuck me, the way you hurt me. I want it harder,” Runi gasps, “Hurt me and fuck me harder.”

Myr responds to this by increasing the ferocity of his thrusts and reaching between their bodies to find the chain and pulling it tight. Runi yells out as the clamps bite into him and this time the pain doesn’t stop. Myr keeps the chain tight as he fucks into Runi and Runi rolls his head against the bed, lost in a wild mess of sensation.

“Come on my cock,” Myr growls. 

Runi mews back, unsure if he even can.

“Come on my cock,” Myr says again. “You belong to me. And now, you only come on my cock. You understand, you come like this, untouched, from my cock fucking you and no other way. No other way for the rest of your life.”

And that’s enough. The idea of that on top of the vicious fucking, the pain, the blindfold, the entire fucked up situation and Runi is right there coming as hard as he ever has in his life and Myr is fucking him right through it, falling into his own orgasm.

Afterwards they hold each other, Myr gently takes off the clamps, which makes Runi yelp and cry out. And after that Myr coos and soothes him and he lies, feeling very soft and light in Myr’s arms. He says, “Myr, you could have gone anywhere.”

“What?” says Myr.

“You had that energy from me, enough to transfer yourself all the way here, you could have used that to go anywhere. But you came here even though your mother abandoned you as a baby and killed your father for begetting you, and you had no idea she wouldn’t murder you as soon as she saw you, you could have gone anywhere, but you came here.”

“It’s the only other place I know,” says Myr softly into Runi’s hair.

“That’s not why. You came here, you came to your mother, because that was the only way you could think of to rescue me.”

“I suppose,” says Myr. “I suppose that’s true.”

And before much longer they both fall asleep.

*

Myr helps Runi dress in the outfit his mother sent over, including fastening his wrists with chains behind him, which makes him moan and roll his head. Myr kisses him. “You like this?”

“I always like it when you bind me.”

“Ready for these?” Myr presses the clamps to Runi’s chest.

Runi takes a ragged breath. “Kiss me first,” he says.

“I can do better than that,” says Myr. He leans close. He presses his lips to Runi’s, pushes his tongue into Runi’s mouth and when Runi is lost in the kiss, he snaps the first of the clamps home. 

Runi yells out into Myr’s mouth and in return Myr moans with pleasure. 

Breaking the kiss enough to murmur, “Another?” and wait for Runi’s, “Anything, you want,” he snaps the second one home and Runi is glad he is standing so close as he needs Myr to hold him upright, the sensations are so overwhelming. 

Runi is barely recovered when Myr whispers in his ear, “The sun is down now.”

Runi’s heart leaps. “I can see you.”

“You can,” Myr says, and he lifts his hands behind Runi’s head and unfastens the blindfold there. The soft cloth falls away and Runi blinks. Myr is what he sees first, the same face, the same hair, that slight sly smile that almost looks bashful. 

Then he turns to see the room, all glass and silver, the bed they’ve lain upon, white and smooth. It’s dark, candles flicker, reflecting on the endless shiny surfaces. Everything reflects Runi back to himself. He can see how naked he is, silver sparkles at his neck and waist, on his tits. The hip cloth is tiny, it only just covers his dick. The idea of going out like this twists his insides with shame. Myr sees him looking and slides his arms around Runi’s waist, sharp chin on his shoulder. “You look beautiful like this. Bound and displayed and hurting.”

Beyond his reflection in the walls of glass he can see the dark sea, the moon. Over to the east, he can see the lights of Bow. “It’s incredible here,” says Runi.

“Best at night, I think,” says Myr, dropping a kiss on Runi’s cheek. “Are you ready for this?” Myr produces the item that looks like a bright silver mushroom.

Runi nods, mouth a little dry. “I suppose.”

“Get on the bed, I’ll need you to get your arse in the air for me,” Myr whispers, nipping a little at Runi’s ear. 

Runi moves quickly up on the bed, careful of the clamps, he feels himself start to colour at the humiliating position, face down in the bed, wrists bound, arse ready for the thing in Myr’s hand. 

Myr comes up behind him. He presses a finger in first. Runi is still oiled from the fucking. “I think there’s still some of my seed inside you,” says Myr. “How nice to think it will be staying in your hole all evening.”

The thought of that makes Runi moan against the sheets. 

“I think you seem ready. You’re still so slick here.” Myr slides his fingers, Runi moans. “You want this, don’t you?”

“Yes, please,” Runi gasps out, trying to push back against Myr’s fingers, but then they’re gone, replaced with cold metal, thicker than any cock he’s had inside him. It stretches him as Myr presses it deeper. Runi cries out as it feels for a moment like far, far too much. And then it’s in. Heavy and _there_ , a pressure he can’t escape.

Myr is over his back. “Do you like that?” he murmurs. “How it feels, in you. Like you're being kept ready for my dick at all times?”

“Yes, Lord of Magic,” Runi says, slightly starry with it.

“And everyone will know. Everyone will know what’s inside you and why.”

Runi moans, knees going weak under him. His head is spinning.

Myr whispers, “We should go.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Walk a step behind me, keep your eyes down,” Myr mutters as he leads the way out of the room into a glass corridor. Runi feels, more intensely the strange sensations of being surrounded by cool air, but feeling perfectly warm enough, despite being hardly dressed at all. Having his wrists restrained publicly makes him feel so vulnerable, it’s hard, but not impossible to bear, the clamps hurt every time they move, which is every time he takes a step. The thing inside him, makes him feel desperate and used. All of it together, as he walks behind Myr, who he loves beyond anyone, is a pleasure above any he’s known. 

Myr takes Runi to a large long hall, set for a formal dinner. Again there are candles and mirrors, glass and white cloth. It’s all dark and sparkling. Even the floor is glass, and through it Runi can see the drop to the white flecked sea. 

On long tables sit around fifty fey. Beside each of them is another, sat upon the floor, dressed like Runi in collar and chains. Runi follows Myr to a chair set beside a throne. The fey who sits upon the throne is, like all of them, slender and silver haired, her skin glitters, far more intensely that Myr’s it looks as if it is covered in tiny crystals. Her long hair is pushed behind ears with small points. As Myr draws near he says, “Good evening, mother.”

“Good evening, son of tears,” says the fey. When she speaks Runi can tell she is the same fey who spoke to him when he was blindfolded. Myr’s mother. The queen.

Runi is directed to kneel on the floor next to Myr, between him and his mother. As he does he notices that another fey kneels next to the queen’s throne.

The queen watches him as he does and says, “It is so strange looking. Are you sure about this, son of tears? If you cast it aside now, we could find you something far more fitting.”

Myr says, “I am sure about him. Completely.” Runi feels a little flicker of warmth at that. “What is the name of your consort, mother,” says Myr, taking his seat.

“Oh, this one?” says the queen, glancing to her side. “I don’t know. I call it Blue Eyes. I think I like this one. I must do. I haven’t killed it. I often kill them,” she makes a soft sound like a tiny laugh, “but I suppose you know that, don’t you?”

Myr’s voice is cool. “If you are referring to my father, Goren of the North, yes I am aware you killed him.”

“I waited until you were twelve. I thought that enough time to raise you. As I didn’t wish to do it myself, I thought that was fair.”

“I did not care for him,” says Myr. “He treated me cruelly. I was glad when he died.”

“That is unsurprising. He was an unpleasant man. He had an air about him that was enjoyable to have mastery over, but I knew he was only offering me what I wanted. Not like your creature.” Runi can’t look up, but he feels long fingers in his hand that aren’t Myr’s. “It likes being debased, doesn’t it?”

“He enjoys what I enjoy doing to him,” says Myr. 

Runi focusses on the feelings of the clamps and the thing inside him. He feels a little distant from everything around him, nice and floaty. Like he’s nowhere, nothing, just some feelings and soft sensations. 

Every so often, as the meal progresses, Myr’s hand appears holding something for him. The food is light. Little fruits that taste sweet and sharp, tiny delicate pale cheeses. Runi takes each piece carefully with his tongue, letting it flicker over Myr’s fingers, at first, but, as time passes, he gets more daring, he licks Myr’s fingers, sucks them into his mouth, even whines when they are taken from him, and although Myr doesn’t look at him, Runi can tell from the way Myr is shifting in his seat, that’s he’s enjoying this every bit as much as Runi is. 

When Myr next feeds him, letting his fingers slide right into Runi’s mouth and glaze over his tongue, and he pulls them free and Runi whimpers at the loss, Myr slips his hand further down and pulls the chain connecting the clamps. Runi doesn’t stop himself, his nipples are so sore and sensitive he cries out in pain. 

Myr makes a sound like a muffled gasp. Runi looks between Myr’s legs. He’s hard in his breeches.

Runi steals a glance around the room, trying to do so while also keeping his gaze lowered. He looks around at the fey who are kneeling like him. Most of them are sitting sweetly, heads bowed, waiting to be passed food, but one or two of them are under the table, faces pressed between master’s legs. Seeing that, knowing that was permissible in here was all Runi needed. 

He slips under the table, finds his way between Myr’s legs and looks up at him.

Myr looks down, face stern.

Runi doesn’t speak. He mouths at Myr’s dick through the leather of his breeches. Myr watches him for a moment. He seems like he is trying to resist but his eyes are glassy with arousal. Runi knows he won’t be able to manage for long and he’s right. Myr reaches down and unfastens his breeches, letting his cock free into Runi’s waiting mouth.

Runi gets hard at the feel of Myr’s cock in his mouth. So familiar and right, under a table, like he’s back where they began. He moans and Myr holds him by the hair, forcing him to take it deep. It feels so good and so right, just to relax his throat and let Myr use him like a hole for his dick. 

When he swallows Myr’s seed he feels like he’s lost in a perfect dream. Myr reaches under the table to Runi and runs a finger over his sticky tongue.

“You like my cock, don’t you, Chancellor,” Myr whispers. “You like it when I use you this way? You loved it right from the start.”

“Yes,” Runi says softly, words bending around Myr’s finger. “Yes, I did.”

The moment is broken when another voice interrupts them, high and sharp saying, “That thing you have is so plump and pink. It is nice to fuck? Is it all squidgy on the inside too?”

Myr looks up. Runi does too. There is a fey standing behind Myr’s chair looking down at both of them. He’s very tall, taller than most fey. His hair is long and black, slick as pitch, and he wears all black. His skin is silver. Myr says to him, “You’ll never know.”

“Oh don’t be like that,” says the fey. “How much to fuck it.”

“I don’t do that. No one fucks him but me.”

The fey makes a face. “Well that’s a lie. I can scent that it’s had two other human’s in it in the last week.”

“I didn’t sell him. Those were rapes,” Myr says. That shocks Runi a little. Myr talks so casually about it. About the things they faced under Zagor.

The tall fey’s eyes go wide. “Rapes. How delicious. Did you get to watch them?” The fey visibly shudders with delight. “Did he scream? Beg?”

Something about the gaze of this particular fey feels revolting to Runi. He whimpers a little and pushes closer to Myr’s legs. Myr puts a cool hand on top of Runi’s head. “Get away from him,” Myr says. His voice icy and dangerous.

“Oh, so you wish to be protective. How sweet of you.” The fey shrugs. “But as you let it get raped you obviously can’t protect it. Unsurprising. As a halfling your magic will be weak and almost useless. I claim it.” The fey raises his voice and his next words chime like a bell, every fey in the room looks up and attends to him. “I claim this creature,” he calls out. “It’s master let it get raped. I, Warden of the Moonless Night claim the Slave of the Son of Tears.” 

“Retract your claim,” says Myr in a very low, very dangerous voice. 

Runi looks over at the queen. She’s smiling. She leans down to her consort. “Ah, now we will something, Blue Eyes,” she says.

The Warden of the Moonless Night is still waiting. 

“I said, retract your claim, Warden of the Moonless Night,” growls Myr. “Or I will see you on the floor.”

The Warden of the Moonless Night grins horribly. “You will, will you. You who are half human, what could you possibly do to me?”

“You are about the find out,” Myr pushes back his chair and stands up. Everyone is watching now. “I challenge The Warden of the Moonless Night for making a claim on my slave. I will see him on the floor.”

Runi stares at him. “What are you doing?”

Myr glances down at him. “Something stupid,” he says.

The room is in uproar, full of cheers and squeals of delight. The fey are climbing up on the tables to see down to wide space of floor in the centre of the room. Without another word to Runi, Myr leads the Warden of the Moonless Night down to it,

It is clear to Runi that they are going to fight. Somehow. They stand opposite each other, hands up, fingers splayed. When the queen shouts, “Begin,” lights seems to fly between them, something like the glittering light Runi has seen Myr using to make magic.

A flash of it hits Myr’s face and bloods his nose. But he hits back, his next flash strikes the Warden’s cheek, slicing it open.

But after that, Myr starts losing. The Warden’s next few strikes all hit him and he doesn’t get anymore in. In moments he is struggling and covered in blood. One of his arms is limp by his side. 

Runi can hardly bear to watch. He looks across to the queen who says, idly, “He’s run out of power.” She looks at Runi. “He needs more power than a fey to keep charged. He must have had a stock from fucking you, but it’s gone now. He’s got no magic left to speak of.”

“Help him,” says Runi, desperately.

The queen raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Speak again, slave, and I will be having words with the warden about your training.” On the floor Myr takes another hit, going down onto one knee as his leg gives way.

Runi ignores this. If Myr loses this fight everything is for nothing. “He’s your son,” he says, “why won’t you help him?”

The queen looks at him amused. “He’s your lover, why won’t you?”

Runi sees it then, instant and crystal. So simple. If Myr started the fight matching the Warden, because he had power from dominating Runi, from hurting him and fucking him, Runi needed to give him more power. And he knew how. He stands up.

On the floor, Myr is on his hands and knees in front of the Warden. The crowd is roaring.

“Uncuff me,” he says to the queen, turning to present his wrists.

She smiles at him, “Oh, that’s interesting. I think I will,” she says, reaching down with her elegant hands and freeing Runi’s wrists. 

Runi climbs up on the table. “Myr!” he yells out. “Myr, look at me. See what I will do for you. What I give you. You can do anything to me. Take anything from me. I love you” Myr, bloody and swaying on the ground, looks at him. He looks as if he is about to say something, maybe ask Runi to stop, but Runi doesn’t give him a chance. He takes hold of the chain connecting the clamps and pulls it, pulls the clamps right off his sore tits. It hurts so much and he screams, sinking to his knees.

For a second Myr seems to glow with a bright blue light, as he stands and shoots light out of both his hands at the Warden, who flies across the room. The crowd erupts with sound, both jubilant and angry. It’s chaos, people are running everywhere. Runi is on his knees on the table panting hard when two fey take hold of his arms, recuff his wrists and say, “Come on, human, let’s get you out of the way.”

*

The two anonymous fey bundle Runi out of the room and through the corridors of the glass palace, ending up back in the room where he began. They shove him forward onto the bed and seem about to leave, when one of them, the slightly taller, one pauses. 

“I cannot believe that’s what they were fighting over,” he says.

“Why not?” says the smaller one.

“It’s just so big and pink. Would you fuck it?” The taller one walks back into the room, getting close enough to grab one of Runi’s bound arms and pull him closer. He runs a cool hand over Runi’s arse, pokes at his belly with the other.

“Can’t,” says the small one, who pauses to close door before coming back over. “It’s all plugged up.” He taps a firm finger on the base of the thing in Runi’s hole, making him groan and arch. It’s awful and good.

“You could take that out,” says the tall one, who is now caressing Runi’s arse with his hand. “If you did want to fuck it, you could take it out.”

“I could,” the small fey twists the base of the thing. Runi moans like an animal, writhing in the tall fey’s arms. “I bet it’s still slick inside.” The smaller fey leans close to the other. “I could fuck it so easily.” And he draws the thing out of Runi’s hole. “I bet it’s kept all ready for its master’s dick.”

Runi moans at the feeling, moans again when he feels the small fey’s slender finger press inside him. It goes in easily.

“It’s still so wet,” says the small fey. 

That sensation, the words, it’s mortifying. With his wrist bound he can’t stop them. He ought to say something, he knows, but what. The small fey has several fingers in him now and it’s good. It feel so good.

“Don’t,” says the other fey. “Don’t do that. it’s wrong. This is a human. You can’t fuck it.”

“Don’t be jealous,” says the small fey. Take it’s mouth.” 

Instantly the tall fey’s hands are on Runi’s mouth, pulling down his jaw. More fingers jabbing inside. “Would you bite me,” says one of the fey to Runi, as he runs his fingers all over Runi’s tongue, a nasty grinning face in his face.

Runi doesn’t know how to answer. He widens his eyes.

The small fey says, “If you bite him, I’ll make you sorry.” And he lifts the hand that isn’t inside Runi, in the same way Myr and the Warden had while fighting, fingers splayed. “Like this.” As he says that there’s a flash of sudden light and Runi’s world snaps into pain so instantly overwhelming, he almost falls, half held up, only on the fingers inside his body. His skull feels like it will burst, he feels like he has a toothache in every tooth in his head. And then it’s gone and he’s panting, fingers in his mouth, fingers in his hole.

“Do you want that again?” says the small fey.

Runi shakes his head. Terrified. 

“Good. I’ll start with it’s mouth then,” says the tall fey taking his fingers out. Behind him the other fey removes his fingers from Runi’s slick hole and they both crowd close, hands pulling his mouth open, one of their dicks is brought near, hard and dripping and he can feel the other start to press close behind him.

That’s when the door opens and immediately the room explodes with more flashing light. And Myr’s voice saying, “Get away from him.”

Runi is barely aware of next moments, but senses the two fey guards scampering out of the room, and there, next are Myr’s hands on him, taking him into the bed, holding him, checking him all over for anything that is hurt, stroking every part of him that’s been abused, gently touching his hole, kissing his nipples. Murmuring, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You’re safe now. They’re gone, they’re gone.”

Runi looks at Myr. Myr looks at him. 

“Is this you now?” he says.

“What?”

“Shooting magic at everyone. Send them flying across rooms.”

“No,” Myr says. “I think that was the last of that energy you gave me. It was a good use of it though.”

Runi presses close. He feels safe in Myr’s arms. The only way he can feel safe in this glass world. “Did you speak to your mother?” he says. “Will she help us kill Zagor, take Bow.”

Myr shakes his head sadly. “No quite. She wants one more thing.”

“Oh?” says Runi.

“What you did, back at the dinner, it gave her an idea. She wants us to make something called a marriage display. It’s a fey tradition.” Runi doesn’t reply. He has no idea what this could be and waits for Myr. “What you did, earlier. It gave me a huge amount of power, but it also gave power to any fey in the room who was able to connect with you in that moment, to feel pleasure from watching you. My mother, I believe got quite a jolt, which, in so many ways, I’d rather not know about. But there’s a fey tradition where, when a high profile match like ours is made, part of the wedding involves a display of suffering in the arena, by the consort who acts as slave. And a crowd of fey watch and they gain power and, of course the master of the consort gains most of all.”

“So you would treat me cruelly, in front of them. That’s all she wants?” says Runi.

“It would not be me,” says Myr, heavily. “It would be, we have a class of fey, rather like the Calisto have their inquisitors. Fey with skills in pain and humiliation. One of them would do it. They are called The Exquisite. They are considered, the best of us.”

Runi swallows. “But you would be there?” 

“I would. I would be required to watch you being treated cruelly. You would be expected to thank me for it. How much cruelty you can take, as my consort, is a measure of my worth.”

Runi nods. Unsure quite what to think. What would The Exquisite be like. Would it be like the pain the small fey gave him? He couldn’t take that. But that pain did not seem to give the fey any pleasure. What if it was simply Myr’s treatment, but crueller?

“What if we don’t do it?” says Runi

“I would guess my mother will send you back to Zagor and I will be kept here. She will hope you killed so I can be free to marry someone more suitable,” says Myr, quietly. 

“And would you be heir to this? To Perpetua? Would you be king one day?”

“Oh no, she has a dozen offspring before me. I doubt I even qualify as a prince. But she still has her concerns over who I wed.”

“So I have to die. And Zagor will kill me as soon as he sees me, I am sure.”

Thoughtfully, Myr says, “Our wedding may not be binding. As you are, lesser. It may not be a concern what happens to you, once you are gone.”

“Then we could make the argument. Like we did with Charna. She doesn’t need to kill me. And we could get her to send me somewhere safe.”

“Where is safe now? Where in the world?”

Runi thinks. The Northern Lands had always felt like the safest place there was. The part of the world he knew that Calisto would never touch. Now those states are all gone. All fallen to Zagor. “I don’t know,” he says. “The Isle of Stars, Ka, The Genzies? No, The Genzies fell to Calisto. Caen, perhaps?”

“Is that how we survive this?” Myr says sounding so heavy and sad. “You in exile. Verna and Charna left to their fates. Me, here, with a consort my mother approves of. A fey like Blue Eyes.”

“What’s so wrong with Blue Eyes?”

“Ah, nothing. But somehow I can’t imagine her climbing on a table naked, screaming, ripping chains off herself for me.” 

“You don’t know,” Runi smiles. “I doubt many would have imagined it of me.”

“Still, my love, I don’t want us to be parted.”

Runi pauses. Myr has never called him his love before. His heart is heavy with all of it. But he knows what he must do. He thinks Myr knows too. They can’t give up now.

Myr says, “Even if there was a place, my mother would never agree to send you there. Why would she? If we refuse her she will be angry. She’ll send you to your death. She has her heart set on this display.”

“Then perhaps I ought to do it,” says Runi. “If I do it and she decides I am a match for you she’ll help us take back Bow.”

“She might. Runi, you don’t know what you’re offering. It will be, it will be…”

“Do you know what I’m offering?” says Runi.

“Do _I_ know?”

“Do you even know what will happen in a marriage display? You’ve never been here, before. You got here a day before I did. Have you even been to the arena. Have you seen a slave tormented by The Exquisite?”

“No. But I can imagine… I am of the fey. We are… The things that give us pleasure would appall you.”

“You don’t know what would appall me,” Runi says firmly. “Do you even know what I can withstand? I’m not an ingenue or some kind of naive child you need to protect. You know, at dinner, you didn’t need to fight that fey, you could have ordered me to lie with the Warden, if you had desired it. You did that with Zem to power the wards. And I liked it. You know I did. I like doing whatever you tell me. I know how it must be for you now, after what Zagor did, watching other people use me, but don’t let him take that away from us, when I say I can do something, trust me. I trust you. And I’m stronger than you know.”

“Runi,” Myr kisses the top of his head. “You are the bravest person I know. I cannot imagine how you have done what you’ve already done for me.”

“I feel like it’s easy to be brave for you. If you give me an order, I can do it. I want to do it.”

“So, you require my permission to do this?”

“Better than that, I want you to make me do it. I want you to order me to suffer for you.” Runi’s breathing is shallow. “Demand it of me. However bad it is, however it hurts. Tell me I must. That’s how it is meant to work, isn’t it? If we were both fey and I was your slave, you would be expected to command my suffering.”

“Alright Chancellor,” says Myr, turning over and straddling Runi on the bed. “You will do as I tell you and go to the arena and suffer for me. I will watch you and enjoy it. I will delight in your pain.”

Runi bucks up against Myr, “Anything you want,” he breathes. “Anything.”


	9. Chapter 9

Runi sleeps in Myr’s arms. Both of them naked. It is the first time Runi has slept the night in bed with Myr, the first time he’s seen Myr completely naked, pale and lovely. Despite everything, every awful thing, he feels lucky to have this. Lucky that he could ever have discovered this, that he could be so happy with this man he had known for years in the palace before they even touched, that they had even met at all, that Myr had even been born.

In the morning, Runi wakes to find Myr has replaced the blindfold, covering his eyes. He’d forgotten about the blindfold. Myr is stroking his cheek. Runi moves close. Myr has dressed himself and Runi presses his face into the silky folds of Myr’s shirt. 

“I will be blindfolded for the display?” he says.

“You must be. The sun is up. Do you want me to refuse them on that account? Is it too much?”

Runi holds back a shiver. He says, “Nothing is too much if I’m yours.”

Myr laughs and kisses him. “You’re ridiculous. But if it helps, I will enjoy it. The blindfold brings me pleasure. I like it when you wear it. I like the way it makes you so vulnerable and dependant on me.” Runi makes a soft arousal sound and grinds his body into Myr’s hard flank. “And if you like I can explain what will happen today. I did a little research after you went to sleep, so we can know as much as we can.”

“Yes,” says Runi. “I think that would help.”

“A couple of the guards will come and fetch us. It won’t be the two from last night, I’ve made sure of that. They’ll take us down to the arena. It’s not as huge as it sounds. It’s merely a large room. Smaller than the long hall at the palace. There will be less fey there than at the dinner, for example. A marriage display is powerful, the audience will be honoured to be selected. First, you’ll be taken to a waiting place. A cell, where you’ll sit while the fey who are going to watch assemble. The member of the Exquisite will probably come and talk to you while you’re there to prepare with you how it will be and outline any specific protocol. After that you’ll be brought in and I’ll be there, watching. I’ll be very close. Even if you don’t know where I am, trust that I am so near to you.”

Runi nods into Myr’s shoulder. It all feels real now. And despite what Myr has told him, he still feels like he has no idea what to expect.

Myr is kissing him when there’s a knock at the door. 

*

Runi is put into a cell. He can’t see it but there is a bench to sit on. Manacles are fastened to his ankles and wrists and chained together, he hears the door clang shut. His dick is half hard under the hip cloth he wears. 

The wait, he thinks is to build his fear of what will happen. But it feels manageable. At least it does until the cell door clangs again and the voice that speaks is horribly familiar. 

“Hello again. I have been told your name is Runi Assam, although I doubt I will be using it. Do you remember mine?”

Runi swallows. “I do. You are the Warden of the Moonless Night.”

“Ah, well remembered.” There are fingers on his jaw then, cool and hard. Runi tries to flinch away but it is as if the Warden anticipated it, grabbing Runi’s hair with his other hand and holding it in place. “Shush-shush,” he coos. “Don’t make it difficult.”

“You’re one of The Exquisite?” Runi says as the Warden moves his head from side to side, inspecting him.

“I am,” says the Warden, leaning in and kissing Runi’s jaw above where he holds it. He presses a few more kisses there as he speaks. “Your lover should have known that, of course, which, despite his posing, he did not. He knows little of our ways. And he is very weak. But if you delight in him, perhaps you might like to imagine what a pure fey would do for you. How cruel they would be.”

“I’ve had a taste of the cruelty of the pure fey,” says Runi. “I did not care for it.”

“If you are referring to those feckless guards who thought they could rape you, please do not compare them with me. Actually it was I who took them apart for what they did to you.”

“You? I thought Myr dealt with them.”

“Your lover merely reported them. What they did was a crime here. They cannot just take you like that. Currently, you belong to the son of tears. Taking you without his leave is a crime. I, you will recall, made an official claim on you, because your master could not protect you from rape, his duty, a claim which they only endorsed further, but no matter that now. They were given to The Exquisite for it. I flayed their cocks personally last night. You should have heard how they screamed. It was very beautiful.” The Warden kisses Runi’s neck.

It feels good. Runi cannot find it in himself to resist or protest. The blindfold, the chains, the kissing. He says, “This is part of the torment, isn’t it? Making me want you?”

The Warden draws back and pets Runi’s cheek with is hand. “Ah,” he says, “we are going to have such a wonderful morning together.” His voice drops to a whisper. “You will wish you’d let me win that fight when you see how I can ruin you. I’m going to take you to fucking pieces.”

*

Runi is taken by the Warden to the arena, which he cannot see, but which feels and sounds, as Myr said, like a room about the size of the Long Hall in the Palace on Bright Water in Bow. He thinks for a moment of the last time he was that room. Drugged on Tiger’s Eye. 

Runi is pushed down to his knees, onto what feels like carpet. He can sense there’s a chair in front of him. He knows it must be Myr.

“Son of Tears,” says the Warden, in that clear bell of a voice he’d used the night before. “Is this your slave consort?”

“It is,” says Myr. Runi finds it quite a comfort that he’s so near, and if he has any feelings about the Warden being the one to torment Runi, he’s hiding them.

“He is subservient to you?” says the Warden.

“He is.”

“Do you require him to submit to me?”

“I do. I enjoy his suffering.”

“Thank you, son of tears.”

Runi gasps a little. There is something about the way the Warden and Myr are discussing him, and what is to be done, how he is to be used, in front of him, as if his feelings are of no consequence, that makes him burn with arousal.

The Warden bends down and lifts Runi’s chin. “You will now pay your respects to me.”

Runi knows, at least, how to do this. It’s what the queen asked him to do to Myr. He doesn’t know how many people are watching him, or where they are, but he knows they will all be enjoying it, getting power from seeing him debased. He likes that idea as much as he hates it. 

He uses his shoulder to find the position of the Warden’s legs and carefully presses his forehead to the floor. He kisses the floor. He’s expecting the Warden’s boot on his head, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the Warden says, “Kiss my boot, slave.” Something nudges his chin. Leather.

It’s sudden rush how much Runi likes that idea. He slips forward a little, finds the smooth shape of the Warden’s boot, slightly warm, and kisses it. He does it slowly. He lets his tongue slip out a little. It feels good.

He could stay there like that all day, letting his tongue move over the Warden’s boot, but after a while, the Warden catches his hair and lifts his head. He finds himself whimpering.

“Very nice, slave, but don’t think you can get yourself out of pain with such a beautiful display of abasement,” he says.

“No,” says Runi. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

The Warden catches him a single soft slap on the side of his face. “No, master,” he says, his tone making it clear it’s a correction.

“No,” Runi says, breathless, “master.”

“Very good. Let’s see you remember that when you’re in pain,” says the Warden.

Runi is lifted to his feet and led to some kind of large stool or padded table. It’s waist height and he is draped over it. It slopes down a little so his arse is raised. He strapped down at the wrists, ankles and waist. He’s displayed and the intention of the position is clearly either pain or fucking. He’s pretty sure what’s coming and it’s confirmed when the Warden hisses in his ear. “I’m going to use a switch on you. There isn’t the right kind of space for a whip, but I assure you, this will be very, very painful.”

Runi whimpers and a thin, flexible piece of wood is pressed to his mouth. 

“Kiss it,” says the Warden. 

“Yes master,” Runi says, pressing his lips to the wood, and the Warden says, “That’s right, slave.”

The first stroke, when the Warden begins, is a whistle and a sharp instant burn, a stripe of pain right across Runi’s arse. 

Runi grunts, it’s agony, he jolts in the restraints. It hurts but he likes it. His dick stirs. The Warden hits him again, and this time he cries out, it’s so much, so bright and cruel, but it’s still good, so very good.

He lets the beating happen, falling into the pain, riding on it. It’s awful and intense. Sometimes it feels like he can’t bear it, can’t take any more, and when that happens he remember he has no choice, all he can do is bear it and that makes him moan with pleasure and helplessness.

He feels almost lost in it, drunk on it, when the Warden is in front of him again, “Very good,” he breathes, leaning forward and kissing Runi on the mouth. The kiss is deep and Runi is too loose and lost to resist it. He lets the Warden’s tongue slide into his mouth. It’s beautiful. 

When the Warden pulls back a little, Runi moans, “You are special, aren’t you,” the Warden says, fingers playing a little with the edge of Runi’s mouth.

“Yes, master,” says Runi.

“I can do anything I want to you, can’t I?”

“Yes, master,” coos Runi again. “Please.”

“I could beat you all over again.”

“Yes, master,” Runi says. “Anything.”

“Or I could do this,” says the Warden. And he straightens up. There’s a second where Runi isn’t sure what happening and then, the Warden, rips the blindfold from his eyes. 

Someone, somewhere shouts, “No!”

The light is vicious. So bright it’s like a knife. Before he slams his eyes shut, Runi gets a single brief impression of the room he’s in. It’s large and carpeted. Around him on chairs are a ring of fey. Runi hears himself screaming and not stopping. Shutting his eyes hasn’t helped much. The light is still coming. It’s coming through his eyelids. He feels like his eyes are on fire.

There a yell that sounds like Myr. But also not like him. Like an animal. And then next sound is the Warden crying out in pain. 

He feels Myr in front of him. Myr’s chest against his head is familiar, even in the chaos, but Myr’s body feels hotter than normal, feels like it’s vibrating. “Myr?” he says.

Myr is crushing Runi’s face into his own body. The pain of the light is gone as Myr blocks it with his body. 

_It’s okay, it’s okay_ Myr is saying, except he’s not speaking. Myr’s voice is in Runi’s head. _I have you. What you’ve given me… I don’t know but I can fix everything now._

There are crashing noises all around them. The sound of Myr’s mother shouting. “Son of Tears, step down, you must step down.”

“Myr,” says Runi, “are you fighting them. Are you fighting all of them. You can’t.”

_Oh_ comes Myr’s voice _I can. I can do anything. I’m stronger than all of them._

Myr shifts Runi, so his face is no longer crushed into his body. “You can open your eyes,” Myr says. “I fixed it.”

Carefully Runi does so. It’s bright in the room, but the light is no longer painful. It no longer feels like his eyes are dissolving. He looks up at Myr. Myr is glowing. He is surrounded by a bright blue light. 

A few fey are on the floor, including the Warden. Runi can’t tell if they’re dead or unconscious. The rest of the chairs are tipped over, like the group of fey ran from the room.

“What’s happening?” says Runi.

“I don’t know exactly,” says Myr. “But that scream. When you screamed like that. What he did to your eyes. Your trust, your suffering, it’s made me… It unlocked something. I’m, I’m, I don’t even know the limits of what I can do now.” Myr kisses Runi’s forehead. Then his cheeks, kisses his face over and over. “What you’ve given me,” he says, “what you’ve given me.”

“So we can leave? We can both leave? Together? They can’t stop us? We could go to Caen.”

“More than that, Runi. I can kill him. I can kill him as easily as thinking it.”

“Who? The Warden?”

“Zagor. We can go home.” 

*

In Bow, newly liberated, Myr makes Runi spend two days in bed. With his eyes bound. He say he isn’t sure if he was fast enough to prevent any damage, but Runi suspects this is Myr’s way of forcing him to rest while he works with Verne to repair the damage done to the country. 

When it’s finally time. When Myr sits on the bed and removes the bandages Runi blinks and finds he can see quite well, probably as well as he ever could. Myr is smiling at him. He no longer glows blue, but his fingers still have a sight vibration to them.

Behind Myr is Verne. She looks serene, she looks her own old self. She wears her crown.

“Verne,” he says. “Are you…? How are you?”

Verne touches her pale throat. “I am recovering,” she says in a smooth voice. “I have been feeling better and better since I saw that monster drop dead in front of me.”

“Was that okay?” Runi says, “when that happened? The guards didn’t turn on you.”

Verne shakes her head. “This is Bow. The day he burned you, he also married me. That was the worst day of my life, but it meant that when he died, I was his wife. And in Bow that means…”

Runi sits straighter. “Equal power. His death made you the ruler again. In fact,” he says, brain ticking, “we could make the claim that, as he died in Bow, married to you, you are also warden of all the Northern Lands. Or of Galash, Melkhor, Karass, Zendel and Penopep, at least.”

Verne smiles, “We can discuss that later, I am sure. First I would like wait for Charna to arrive back f and have a real marriage ceremony.”

“He’s on his way?” says Runi.

“Yes. He never made it to the Harem. We got a fast overland rider to meet the boat at Disran. The return will take just over a week, I believe,” Verne is smiling, like she can’t wait to see him. Runi feels the same way.

“But wait,” says Runi, “you said, the day I was burned? Did you think I’d burned? That I’d died? But didn’t I vanish? Didn’t Zagor see me vanish?”

Myr looks sheepish. “It seems my mother added a little twist to the magic that brought you to Perpetua. She didn’t just transfer you to Perpetua. She replaced you. With someone nearby. It can help the bounce and mean the spell takes less energy, but that means, with the fire, no one watching saw you vanish.”

“What? How? Who?” Runi shakes his head. Someone else burned up in that fire. Burned in his place. 

Verne says, “While you were being burned, Zem vanished. Zagor assumed he’d run. He was unsure about the idea of killing you, had spoken against it. Zagor sent out search parties, but he was never found and declared a deserter.”

“Oh,” says Runi. Not sure how to react. Zem was a traitor. But did he want Zem to die like that? He didn’t even know.

*

By the time Runi gets to spend the night with Myr in his tower room, the bed has been replaced. 

When Runi remarks on this, Myr strokes his face. “I couldn’t exactly keep the one he’d raped you upon, could I?”

“I suppose not,” Runi says, but he does have a fondness for Myr’s old bed. The one that had been part of so many of his fantasies about Myr binding him and taking him. They’ll never quite come true now.

“When I take you to my bed,” Myr says softly. “I would prefer it just be you and me.”

“You’re right. So would I,” says Runi, gazing up at Myr, the way he sparkles and still and, when Runi gets close enough, glows slightly blue.

“Unless I’m not enough for you now. After everything. I hope I can still satisfy you,” Myr says, his voice a tease.

“I’m sure you are all I need,” says Runi, “but I am keen to find out what you can do now.”

Myr’s eyes go wide. “I don’t even know. I feel like I could do anything.”

“You can do anything to me,” Runi breathes.

“I know,” says Myr. “How about I do this.”

There’s a flash, white and blue. And Runi feels himself moving though space. It seems quick but times seems off someone, like he fell asleep and woke up. But in the next second he’s on Myr’s bed. Naked on his back, roped there at wrists and ankles, knees drawn wide apart. He catches his breath. He’s instantly hard. 

Mrs stands by the bed. “Let me show you something,” he says. He’s holding something. When he opens his fingers, Runi sees it’s a little brass ball. And its spinning as Myr looks down at Runi’s naked body.

Runi flexes himself against the ropes. They’re so soft and so firm and the idea Myr can do this to him any time he feels like just by thinking about it, is so intoxicating he can’t quite let it settle in his brain. “That still works?” he says. His voice sounds dreamy.

“It still works,” says Myr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends. I hope you enjoyed this story. More stories set in this world are coming. You can subscribe to the series if you want to be sure not to miss them. And if you haven’t read [Bright Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21622381) yet, please do. 
> 
> I love your comments and feedback. They make me want to write more.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends. I hoped you are enjoying this story. I love to hear what readers think about my work so please leave a comment or come and find me on [tumblr](https://mathildia.tumblr.com/).


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